


Spellbound

by Cheezey



Series: Third Earth, New Thundera, and Beyond [2]
Category: Thundercats
Genre: Drama, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheezey/pseuds/Cheezey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tragic event leads both Tygra and Chilla into a seductive trap from which they might never escape alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The fight was getting ugly. Deep in the heart of DarkSide, weapons clashed among the warring parties on the ground while the vehicles in the air above fired upon each other with increasing intensity. Such fighting had become almost a daily event in the life of the Thundercats and their foes, the Lunatacs and the Mutants. The battle took place on a plateau high in the bleak mountains of the area. Cheetara, Tygra, Pumyra, and the Thunderkittens fought on the ground against Monkian, Jackalman, TugMug, Chilla, and Alluro. Just a short distance away, Panthro and Lion-O manned the Thundertank, holding off Slythe in the Nose Diver and Vultureman in his flying machine. On the opposite side of the battlefield the Thunderstrike, piloted by Lynx-O and Bengali, faced off with the Lunattacker. An equally determined RedEye, Luna, and Amok were inside that vehicle and fired back with ferocity. The enemy teams were fighting one another so viciously to obtain the same valuable resource—a newly discovered Thundrillium deposit that could power either side for weeks with energy to spare.

It was Pumyra who had made the discovery that morning, while investigating some ruins in the area originating from a civilization they believed to be dated sometime in Second Earth. Long-range readings in the unexplored territory hinted that it might be rich in the treasured ore of Thundrillium, and upon closer investigation, it was confirmed that she had indeed found some Thundrillium pebbles while sifting among debris on the ground. She had later brought Panthro back to check out the area to see if it was worth mining. Sure enough, their analysis indicated a fair amount present in the soil and there was evidence of an even larger deposit beneath. A full team of Thundercats returned to excavate it, and they had just finished loading it when the Mutants and Lunatacs ambushed them. Not surprisingly, it turned out that the Lunatacs had been monitoring them closely ever since their initial entry into DarkSide, and once they had figured out what they were doing, they laid low until the Thundercats finished mining, ambushed the felines, and attempted to take the Thundrillium they had already excavated for themselves. However, the Thundercats were no fools, and they had come into the area expecting trouble. The planned ambush did not go quite as well as the Lunatacs and Mutants had hoped, and the battle they were engaged in was the result.

The ground fight was a stalemate. It was five against five, with neither side having any appreciable advantage. Things took a startling turn for the worse when a stray shot from above struck the ground in the midst of the scuffle and caused everyone to scatter. Cheetara, Alluro, and Monkian scrambled backwards into one ruin, while the others fell back in the opposite direction. Before they could get their bearings and fight again, another stray shot, that one originating from the Thunderstrike, blew open a still-intact wall to a sealed chamber dangerously close to the three who were in the ruins. When the ancient concrete crumbled after being hit with the fiery beam, a putrid green haze seeped out from the ruins and engulfed them. The three of them struggled to breathe in the noxious cloud of vapor, but its poisonous stench overpowered them and brought each of them to their knees, gasping for air. It took only seconds for the toxins in the gas to pass into their bloodstream, and in short order the affected Thundercat, Lunatac, and Mutant fell to the ground unconscious. The murky haze dissipated a few moments later, vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared, but despite that Cheetara, Alluro, and Monkian still lay there unmoving.

The others saw what had happened to their respective allies and ran to the site, their skirmish temporarily forgotten in light of the unsettling turn of events. Even the selfish Mutants and Lunatacs could not ignore one of their own falling, even if a chunk of the motivation was simply to make sure they were not in danger themselves. Besides, there would be time to nab the Thundrillium while the Thundercats were preoccupied with Cheetara, they individually reasoned.

Tygra was the first to reach them. He did not smell anything off in the air as he knelt at Cheetara's side, although he was distracted by her ominously limp form. "Cheetara, no!" the anguished tiger said as he scooped her into his arms. "Cheetara, please, you have to wake up!" He sensed others gathering around behind him, friend and enemy alike, but his main concern was for his fallen friend.

"Great Jaga..." Pumyra whispered, her heart heavy as she looked down at Cheetara.

"She's not!"

"She can't be!" cried the two Thunderkittens.

Ignoring the Thundercats for a moment, Jackalman whimpered as he approached Monkian and gave his still body an apprehensive tap with his foot. "Monkian, nyah, are you ok?" He waited for a response, but there was none.

Chilla meanwhile knelt beside Alluro and felt for a pulse. She glanced up at TugMug, who had wheeled over behind her, with an uncharacteristic look of distress on her face.

"They're dead?" TugMug asked, although there was little discernable emotion in his tone.

Those who had gathered around the fallen Thundercat, Lunatac, and Mutant were so wrapped up in the situation that they barely noticed that the others manning the vehicles had parked and landed to find out what was happening. Although the temptation was there for the Lunatacs and Mutants to take advantage and grab the Thundrillium, their curiosity got the better of them. They figured that whatever happened, it must have been quite significant to get the others to stop fighting, and they did not want to be left in the dark about it. The Thundercats had no such selfish motives; their only concern was for their friends and they only remained on their guard due to the presence of their enemies. As soon as they climbed out of their vehicles, Lion-O and the other Thundercats gathered around Tygra and Cheetara. Tygra moved out of the way so Pumyra could give the cheetah first aid, but she was unable to do anything to revive her. "She's not dead," Pumyra told them after examining her. "She's got a faint pulse, but whatever that green fog was must've poisoned her. We need to get her back to the Lair now."

"It probably wouldn't be a bad idea for us to get out of here too," Tygra said, frowning at the ruins from which the deadly haze had originated. "Whatever that toxin was, it could still be in the air or there could be more of it. We shouldn't risk further exposure to it."

Lion-O nodded, and before he could even ask, Tygra and the Thunderkittens gently moved the unconscious Cheetara to one of the Thunderstrike's pods. The Thundercat Lord then turned toward his foes still standing nearby. "Are they alive?" He gestured to Alluro and Monkian.

When she heard his voice, Luna whirled around, her green eyes ablaze with rage. "What's it to you?" she screeched. "Haven't you Thundercats done enough? This is all _your_ fault! That shot came from the Thunderstrike!"

"My fault?" a stunned Lion-O repeated, taken aback by the venom in Luna's tone. "_You_ ambushed _us!_ We were only defending ourselves." He frowned at them. "I was just trying to help! Whatever poisoned Cheetara also affected your friends."

Chilla stood up, ignoring the lion for the moment. Any other time she would have loved to ice him, but at the moment she was more concerned about Alluro, a thought that if she actually spent the time to analyze, likely would have disgusted her. "Alluro's still alive, Thundercat," she informed him icily. "His heart's still beating, but not very strongly."

Among the Mutants, Vultureman was attempting to diagnose Monkian's condition. Although he was no doctor or medic, of the Mutants on Third Earth he was the most educated in biological sciences and defaulted to the role. Addressing Luna rather than Lion-O, as he found her the less odious of the two—although not by much—he added, "It's the same with Monkian. It's clear that vapor did something to them, that it was some kind of fast-acting, caw, poison that went through their lungs."

Lion-O frowned, less at the attitude of the Mutants and Lunatacs than at the gravity of the situation. He took a deep breath and decided he would do what he knew in his heart was the "right thing" even though it would undoubtedly cause himself and his fellow Thundercats an added heap of trouble. "We're taking Cheetara to our medical facility in Cat's Lair. Since those two have been affected the same way, we can take them as well—"

The offer only angered Slythe further, and he hissed in outrage at the notion of the Thundercats pitying them or thinking them too inferior to care for their own. "We don't need _your_ help, Thundercat. We're capable of taking care of ourssselves, yesss! Vultureman, get Monkian into your flying machine and back to Castle Plundarr immediately!" The vulture cawed, and with a bit of assistance from Jackalman, loaded the bulky unconscious simian into the back seat of the vehicle.

Meanwhile Lion-O turned to Luna, who glared back at him with equal contempt. "We don't want or need your charity, Lion-O. Lunatacs are light years ahead of Thunderians in scientific advances. We can take care of ourselves. We're taking Alluro back to Skytomb," she snapped as TugMug and RedEye carried Alluro to the Lunattacker.

"Suit yourself then," Lion-O said, and sighed. A part of him was relieved, but still, he hoped that Alluro and Monkian would not die because their leaders were too proud to accept help from an enemy. "I only thought it might help if just this once we worked together." He then turned and went back to the Thunderstrike, dismissing the Lunatacs and Mutants from his mind as he saw Cheetara once again, prone on the seat and still unconscious. He climbed into the seat beside her and took her hand, his eyes filled with concern. A few moments later the Thundercats were airborne, bound for the Lair, taking the ill Cheetara home. The mined Thundrillium, still in the Thundertank, went with them. Surprisingly, neither the Mutants nor the Lunatacs made a move to intercept it. It seemed that their enemies might value the lives of their teammates more than they had thought.

* * *

A short while later, Panthro, WilyKat, and WilyKit entered the medical bay of Cat's Lair, where Pumyra tended to the comatose Cheetara. "Is there any change?" Panthro asked gently, casting a worried look at the cheetah.

Pumyra looked up from the intravenous fluid bag that she had just finished hooking up and sighed, and the other Thundercats noticed that the puma's eyes were bleary and tinged with red. Although Pumyra had treated patients she had close relationships with before, it was never easy, especially when an eventual recovery was not a given. "I wish I could say there was. She appears to be in a coma. Tygra's running a blood scan on her to see if he can figure out what it was she inhaled, but I don't think..." Her voice trailed off and she fought back a sob of frustration. Her training had taught her that she could not expect to work miracles and that sometimes her efforts would be in vain, but that was hard to put into practice when it was a dear friend whose life hung in the balance.

"No!" cried WilyKat. "Cheetara can't die!"

Before anything else could be said, Lion-O and Tygra joined them. The tiger cleared his throat, and they all turned to him anticipating an announcement, preferably a favorable one. Unfortunately that was not the news Tygra had come to give. "I've finished the blood scan," he said somberly. "Now keep in mind I'm not a doctor, and the life sciences aren't my specialty, but... anyway, I determined that when she inhaled that gas, it triggered the formation of an irregular protein in Cheetara's bloodstream, one that acts as some kind of muscle relaxant and sedative. Its presence triggered and is keeping her in this unconscious state."

Pumyra frowned as she considered what Tygra told her. "Does it show any sign of breaking down? If it does, maybe it'll wear off on its own once it runs its course."

"Unfortunately, the protein is fairly stable and seems to have a long half-life. Incubating the samples at body temperature, and even higher, doesn't speed up the deterioration process." Tygra sighed. "The good news is that I don't think it will kill her. I haven't seen any indication of more toxic metabolites in her bloodstream, and what's in her body now isn't enough to kill her. We can keep her alive on an IV, but I can't tell you how long that'll be. And this toxin is unlike any I've seen, and between Pumyra and I it'll take a lot of research to come up with something to cure it."

"A couple of days you mean?" WilyKit asked nervously.

Tygra's frown deepened. "More like a couple of weeks, or months even, depending on how many leads we get." He put a hand on the kitten's shoulder, his tone heavy with sadness. "Much of Third Earth is still alien to us, and we don't have the benefit of libraries full of information about what plants have what curative properties, or how to identify them, especially when we're not even sure what exactly the toxin is."

WilyKit trembled a little when she took in the implication of what Tygra was saying, and looked at the cheetah's sleeping form with tears in her eyes. "It's not hopeless, is it? I mean, even if you don't find a cure, she'll wake up on her own when it wears off, right?"

"We can hope so," Pumyra said gently to the Thunderkitten. "But different substances work differently in the body, and some can stay in the system for hours while others last months."

"And all indications are that this one is long-lasting," Tygra confirmed. "So in light of that, Lion-O and I have determined two courses of action that we need to take. The first involves a complete investigation of the ruin that the poisonous gas came from. Perhaps something there can tell us precisely what we're dealing with and from there we can narrow down potential remedies. The second is a little more difficult. In order to learn everything we can about the condition, seeing how it works in different physiological states would be helpful. If we were able to get blood samples from Monkian and Alluro and we could see how it reacts in Mutant and Lunatac bodies, it would help tremendously. It'd be ideal if we could convince the Mutants and Lunatacs to let us observe them here, but if that's out of the question, perhaps they'd be willing to negotiate some blood samples with us in exchange for whatever we can tell them about how to cure it."

Lion-O picked up where Tygra left off. "I'm going to ask Bengali to come to the ruins and investigate them with me. Pumyra, I'm going to send Panthro to cover for you and Bengali at the Tower of Omens, so you can go with the Thunderkittens to Castle Plundarr and Skytomb to negotiate with them."

"What if Cheetara's condition worsens?" asked Pumyra. "Shouldn't I stay and monitor her?"

"Snarf has cared for the sick in times of crisis back on Thundera and he knows some first aid, and Tygra will be here in the Lair monitoring his sample workups. If an emergency arises, they should be able to cover it until you can get back."

"It's unlikely that her condition will worsen from what analyses I've run," Tygra assured her.

"And you're the formally trained healer, so you're the logical choice to send to get the best samples for the tests," Lion-O finished. "Plus, the Mutants and Lunatacs will be more likely to trust us if they see we're sending you to do the job. They saw back at the ruins that we were asking you the questions about Cheetara's condition."

Pumyra nodded. "That makes sense. All right then. Let's get this taken care of." She gestured to the Thunderkittens. "Come on, Cheetara's counting on us!" The twins quickly followed her, while Lion-O and Panthro left to find Bengali, leaving Tygra alone with Cheetara.

An oppressive silence fell over the medical bay as Tygra took a seat beside the sleeping cheetah. Her breathing was labored and her stillness unsettling to him. _We will save you_, he vowed. _No matter what it takes._

* * *

In a harsher and more industrial facility than the one in Cat's Lair, Luna sat next to Alluro's still form in Skytomb's sickbay. She was alone in the room with him while the others were brainstorming for a solution to their predicament. Even Amok was elsewhere. "I hope you know how much trouble you've caused," Luna grumbled to the unconscious psi, her tone more depressed than angry. She frowned at him with unwanted emotion building up inside her. Though she was loath to admit it, Luna felt an odd sort of responsibility for her ragtag crew, and while she did not like most of them much of the time, she did not want to lose them either. Not only were their skills valuable, but they had been a part of her life for years. However, Luna also was a firm believer that sentimentality was a weakness, and she certainly did not consider herself weak. So why was it that she could not stand the thought that the psi was likely going to die?

A buzzer sounded on the intercom, shaking her out of her melancholy thoughts. She automatically hit the button to respond, glad for the distraction. "What?"

"Caw, Luna, is that you?"

"Vultureman?" she replied, surprised that it was a Mutant on the other end and not one of the other Lunatacs.

"Yes, Luna, I need a favor."

Luna frowned. "Don't you Mutants _always_ need something? What now?"

"We don't have adequate medical facilities at Castle Plundarr to treat Monkian. Since both he and Alluro were affected by the same substance and we were acting as allies to get that Thundrillium, and we both need the cure, I assumed—"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you what assuming does?" Luna retorted curtly. Working with the Mutants was trying on a good day, and that day was far from being classified as good. Unfortunately Vultureman also had a point, and if he had come up with some information about the condition that they had not, she wanted to hear it, so she shelved her distaste for the time being. "Fine," she said after a pause, her tone flat and unwelcoming. "You may bring him in."

"Thanks, Luna," he squawked in response. "You won't regret it." The intercom clicked off.

"I'll believe _that_ when I see it," she muttered back to the dead air before glancing back at the ill Alluro. "When you wake up, I'll pay you back for this."

* * *

Miles away in DarkSide, Lion-O and Bengali searched the ruins. So far they had not had much luck. All they had found was what looked like part of an inscription in an ancient tongue on what remained of the chamber wall. Neither had any idea how to translate it beyond some guesswork that it was some sort of warning given that there was also a pictorial glyph of a fallen body with its hands around its throat.

Wearing a mask on his face to help filter out any noxious particles, Bengali ventured further inside while Lion-O painstakingly sifted through the rubble pieces for more clues. The lion was starting to give up hope when he heard Bengali shout from inside the ruin. "Lion-O, I found something!"

"What?" Lion-O was on his feet in a flash, but before he could make it inside, Bengali greeted him in the spot where he had entered.

"Scrolls. Ancient scrolls," the tiger said as Lion-O approached. He held up a flashlight in one hand so that they could both see what he held in his other better; several rolled-up pieces of cloth-like paper that appeared to be originally fashioned from an animal skin and preserved with a waxy coating. "Maybe these have the answers we're looking for." He smiled with renewed hope.

"Yes, if we can translate them," Lion-O agreed with a nod. "Let's get them back to the Lair. It's the best lead we've got so far."

* * *

WilyKit shuddered involuntarily as she, WilyKat, and Pumyra approached the imposing mobile fortress Skytomb. The three of them had just watched Vultureman and Jackalman carry Monkian inside, and WilyKit herself was not particularly looking forward to being the next to go and knock on the Lunatacs' door. "At least we won't have to go to Castle Plundarr now," she murmured, although it was not much of a consolation to herself, her brother, or Pumyra.

"Yeah, and we just have to convince our enemies who are armed to the teeth and outnumber us two to one that we want to take their sick friends to our home base," WilyKat echoed in sarcastic joviality that betrayed his own nervousness. "Piece of cake, right?"

Pumyra smiled and shook her head lightly, inwardly echoing the kittens' sentiments. "Like Lion-O and Tygra said, we don't have a choice, so we'd better just get it over with. Cheetara's counting on us. Come on." She bravely leapt out from where they crouched in hiding behind a rocky outcropping and approached Skytomb's main doors. The kittens followed her closely behind, pellets already in hand in case of an attack. "Lunatacs! Mutants!" she called out loudly, holding up her hands to show that she intended no threat. "We've come in peace. We only want to talk to you."

A loudspeaker crackled to life. "We have nothing to say to you, Thundercats, other than you have five seconds to get out before we open fire," TugMug's accented voice answered.

"But we want to help you!" Pumyra replied. "Cheetara's suffering from the same condition as Alluro and Monkian. If we work together, we could heal them all. All we're asking is a temporary truce. We all want the same thing: our friends to recover. We're on the same side this time."

"We're only on one side—ours," TugMug countered, and then a second voice, an abrasive and shrill one, cut in.

"Wait, TugMug. Let them in. We'll hear you out, Thundercats, but on our terms. Put your weapons away, and that includes you two brats as well," she said pointedly to the kittens, "and walk slowly into the elevator."

As the elevator began to descend they overheard what sounded like TugMug voicing an objection in the background, but the intercom then went silent before they could make anything else out. "A shame Lynx-O's not with us to tell us what he said."

"It's probably not fit to repeat," Pumyra said as they approached the elevator, which touched down and opened a moment later.

WilyKat glanced nervously into the empty cylindrical chamber beyond the crescent moon insignia doors. "Ladies first," he said, and gestured for Pumyra and his sister to go first. WilyKit shot him a look, and the three Thundercats entered together. The doors closed with a loud clang behind them, and they felt themselves rising a short distance before they opened again, revealing Luna upon Amok, TugMug, and Vultureman waiting for them with dubious and threatening looks.

"What exactly do you want?" demanded Luna.

"Tygra figured out what's causing the condition," Pumyra told them, figuring that being forthcoming with the facts would put them at ease. "When they inhale the gas, it metabolizes into an abnormal protein in the bloodstream that triggers the comatose state. It won't kill them without further exposure, but we don't know how long it lasts, either, or how to counteract it."

"So you don't have a cure or any leads to one," Luna said, glowering at the felines with unhidden contempt. "Why are you here then?"

Pumyra frowned under her enemies' critical gazes. "We were hoping that you'd let us observe and treat Alluro and Monkian along with Cheetara." As she finished speaking the Lunatacs' and Mutant's expressions hardened further, but she pressed on, determined to see it through for Cheetara's sake. "We'd treat your friends as well as we will Cheetara, and you have it on our honor as Thundercats that we'll release them with no strings attached afterward. We won't take undue advantage of any of you," she said earnestly. "For the sake of our friends, we're willing to overlook our differences for the time being."

"How generous," an unimpressed TugMug sneered.

"Absolutely out of the question!" Luna snapped back at the puma. "Alluro stays here." Vultureman nodded along with Luna, making it clear that he was making the same choice in regards to Monkian.

Pumyra frowned, although she was not surprised by the response. In fact, she was more surprised that they were being as friendly as they were and had not tried to pull anything shifty on her and the twins yet. She supposed she ought to not press her luck too much in light of that. "All right then," she said in a diplomatic tone. "Would you allow us to take some blood samples to analyze? Or draw them yourselves if you don't trust me?" Their expressions remained hard and cold, but they did not immediately answer. She then added, "I promise that we'll share anything we learn from it. I swear on the Code of Thundera we won't do them any harm."

"Please, Luna?" WilyKat echoed with a pleading note in his voice. "I know you hate us, but you don't want to let them die just because you don't like us, do you?"

Luna glared back at the boy, but relented. "Oh, very well." She tightened her grip on her riding crop. "A few samples, and nothing more. And we'll be watching you like hawks. In fact, RedEye will be there to supervise along with Vultureman and TugMug." The vulture and graviton exchanged looks, but did not otherwise object while Luna continued to speak. "And if we find out you found a cure and double-crossed us..."

"You won't. We swear on our honor as Thundercats," WilyKit told the Lunatac leader. "Thank you Luna. We really do appreciate your help."

"I didn't do it for you, and I'd rather have results than gratitude," she snapped at the girl in response. "And your welcome here is short. Don't wear it out." She gestured for them to follow her to the medical bay. The sample collection was brief and uncomfortable, with all eyes in Skytomb save Chilla's on them. The icewalker remained on watch while Pumyra and the kittens carried out their task, and as soon as it was done they were ushered out quickly and with a warning to not double-cross them or take too long in getting back to them. Satisfied with what they had gotten and relieved to be finished with it, Pumyra and the Thunderkittens made haste back to Cat's Lair and turned the blood samples over to Tygra.

An hour later he announced the results of his analysis, which was that he had found the same protein anomaly in the blood of the psi and simian that was present in Cheetara's. While that was happening, Lion-O and Bengali returned to the Lair with the scrolls they had found and used their computers as well as hints from Sight Beyond Sight to translate them. They were not able to decipher them in their entirety, but they managed to piece together enough of it to understand the gist of it. Once they did, Lion-O called the Thundercats together to discuss a plan of action.

Facing his fellow Thundercats, Lion-O said, "We have some good news. This scroll mentions a "wrath of underworld god" and "burning fog that chokes out life". And this one seems to tell a story about warriors that ventured too close to this god's treasures who were cursed to eternal sleep in his wrath. We can surmise that they both warn against the same thing; going underground in this region. Perhaps those who built those ruins believed it sacred to this god. Knowing what we do about the gas, we think there's some chemical reaction in the soil, maybe unique to that part of DarkSide, that generates this poisonous vapor and it collects in sealed places underground."

"Like the ruin that got blasted open," Panthro said with a nod.

"Yes," confirmed Lion-O. "But there was more to this story, a mention of a potion or elixir—the word seems similar to the Wollos' term for it, and it makes sense along with the story if it is—that can wake 'the sleeping dead who angered him.'"

"We presume that means the angry underworld god," Bengali added.

Tygra's eyes lit up with hope. "So if that is what it means, then there is a cure for it?"

Bengali nodded. "It seems that whoever wrote these believed it to be magical, and able to be gotten only from a tribe referred to by what we think is a derivative of 'chosen' or 'favored'… the word isn't in any language used on Third Earth now, but has roots in words matching those in the Wollo and Tuska languages."

"Does it say where these people are?" WilyKat asked.

"I hope they're still around and not gone like whoever built those ruins," WilyKit said.

"The scroll mentions a dark forest to the east bordering on a vast sea. From where we were in DarkSide, the unicorn forest best fits that description. Hopefully that means that these people are descendants of whoever wrote these scrolls, and that perhaps the unicorn keepers know who they are. We don't think it's them since the scroll also hints that they're difficult to find and wary of outsiders," Bengali explained.

Lion-O looked over the faces of the other Thundercats. "We can only hope that they still exist on Third Earth, but it's worth a shot to search and find out for sure."

"Absolutely," a resolute Panthro agreed.

"And if we find them, we can cure Cheetara once we get the elixir!" WilyKit said with renewed optimism.

"And Alluro and Monkian too. We did promise, after all," said Pumyra with a wan smile. She was not thrilled at the prospect of returning to Skytomb, but she supposed she would much rather do that than have it turn out to be unnecessary because no cure was found.

"Yes, but maybe we shouldn't tell them just yet," Panthro said, looking from Pumyra to Lion-O. "Once we get this cure we'll give it to them, but you can bet that if we tell them we're following a lead too soon and they get it first…"

"Cheetara will never see it." Lion-O frowned. "No, we can't let that happen… and time is of the essence if we can't find these people at all, so that has to be our main priority. We'll need to send out scouts as soon as possible. Can I count on all of you to help?"

Pumyra smiled at the Thundercat Lord. "Of course you can."

"All right then. Pumyra, I'd like you to stay here this time and keep an eye on Cheetara. WilyKit and WilyKat, stay here with her and Snarf and stay on top of the communications. Lynx-O and Snarfer are still at the Tower of Omens alone since I called Panthro back here, so keep in touch with them. There shouldn't be any attacks from the Mutants or Lunatacs, but Mumm-Ra may use this as an opportunity to strike while we're down. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious. The rest of us will split up and search the unicorn forest."

"Sounds like a plan to me," agreed Panthro.

Tygra nodded along with the panther. "Let's head out then. Cheetara needs us."

"Thundercats—Ho!" the assembled Thundercats called out in unison, and left together to begin their search.

* * *

What the Thundercats did not know was that Chilla, who had followed Pumyra and the Thunderkittens in stealth after they left Skytomb, was still monitoring Cat's Lair from the Ice Runner. Luna had not trusted Pumyra and the Thunderkittens one bit, and had sent her to keep tabs on the Thundercats and keep them updated. The Ice Runner was hidden in a cluster of trees nearby, too far away for her to have any idea what was going on inside the Lair but close enough to see when the Thundertank came tearing out of it. Immediately she began monitoring transmissions, and it did not take long for her to pick up on a call from the Thundertank to the Tower of Omens that spelled out the reason for their sudden departure. Chilla's face twisted into an angry scowl, and she immediately contacted Skytomb with what she had learned.

"Those double-crossing hypocrites!" Luna screeched. "They're off to get a cure, and they didn't say one word to us about it!"

TugMug growled and punched the nearby console. "I told you we should've just blasted those worthless felines, Luna."

Vultureman stroked his beak thoughtfully. "But it's not over yet. They still don't have the cure, so we'll just have to, caw, beat them at their own game. And when we get that elixir, we can cure Monkian and Alluro and leave the Thundercats hanging at our mercy to save Cheetara." A wicked gleam lit up his beady eyes. "Given their foolish sentimentality, they'll do anything we say to save her life, including surrender to us."

RedEye nodded along with the avian. "We need to get out to the unicorn forest right away and see to it that we get it first."

"Yes," Luna agreed. She turned back to the radio. "Chilla, you're already out there, so hurry and beat those Thundercats there." She looked over at RedEye. "You have the sharpest eyes of us, so you head there too. Cover as much territory as you can."

"I'm going too," Jackalman volunteered, and when the other Lunatacs and Vultureman gave him a questioning look, he grinned at them. "Call me untrusting, but I don't exactly trust you two Lunatacs to not just keep that elixir for yourselves and hold it over _our _heads."

Luna let out a disgusted squawk while Amok grunted in the jackal's direction. "You Mutants wouldn't be worth extorting, but very well, have it your way."

"Just don't get in _my_ way," RedEye warned him.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jackalman quipped back as the two of them headed to the elevator and into their vehicles, bound for the unicorn forest.


	2. Chapter 2

Darkness had fallen across Third Earth, and the forest was as black as could be when the various search parties arrived. Both groups, the Thundercats and the Mutants and Lunatacs, soon split up so each individual was mostly on his or her own searching the area for any sign of the secret place where the tribe that could have the cure was rumored to live.

Tygra made his way along a worn forest trail as he searched for clues. Earlier he had thought he had seen the glow of a fire in the distance, but now that he was around the spot that he had seen it, it was nowhere to be found. The curious disappearance of it had him so wrapped up in his concentration that he was caught completely by surprise when he felt a tap on his shoulder from behind. Immediately he whirled around and took a defensive stance.

"I mean you no harm," a gentle female voice said, and he saw that it belonged to what appeared to be a human woman holding a flaming torch. He would have guessed her as human, at any rate, for she had the same features and build as a warrior maiden, albeit less athletic and paler, as though she spent far less time outdoors than the women of the trees. She was rather pretty, he noticed, with her pale skin, long flowing black hair, and robe woven with shiny gold, silver, and red threads in an intricate pattern. The torchlight reflected in her eyes, revealing them to be a deep blue, a curious effect given the darkness of their surroundings. It was almost as if they had a glow of their own.

"Who are you?" asked Tygra.

"My name is Celeste," she answered in a silken voice that flowed as smoothly as the ruffle of her robe in the forest breeze. "I'm a leader from the village that you're searching for."

The tiger's amber eyes widened in astonishment. "How did you know—"

Celeste smiled warmly, disarming his suspicion. "I know all about you, Tygra, and your Thundercat friends. My people, while we keep a low profile on this world, are well aware of what takes place in our forest and the surrounding lands. You're seeking out my village to save a friend of yours, one who breathed the deadly fumes of the fulxiclan, right?"

"The what?" Her accented pronunciation of the foreign word led his thoughts to stumble away from questioning how she knew as much as she did about his situation.

"The green vapor; the accursed breath of the underworld," she explained. "Our sorcerers sealed the paths to it long ago, in the hopes that no more would foolishly trespass in places they did not belong and perish for their foolishness. Our people have the means to treat it with our elixir, although we've had little need for it in recent times." She frowned. "The Forbidden Territories are not idly named; those who dwell there and disturb them are inviting trouble. We don't trust such foolish people nor do we like to waste our time doing so." Her demeanor then relaxed again, and her smile at Tygra resumed. "However, we also know that accidents happen, and take pity upon those unfortunate enough to suffer them. If I understand correctly, your friend Cheetara has fallen victim to the fulxiclan, and is in need of the elixir?"

"Yes!" Tygra said, breathing a sigh of relief and smiling for the first time in hours. "You don't know how happy I am to find you, Celeste. We're so worried that we'll lose her…"

"You won't," Celeste assured him, and laid a hand on his striped arm. "Lucky for you that our scouts have eyes and ears everywhere." She smiled mysteriously and beckoned for him to follow her. "Come with me. I'll show you to my village."

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help," he said earnestly, his heart skipping with near giddiness as he met her eyes. They watched him back intently, and he found himself momentarily lost in the welcoming serenity of her stare.

"This way," she urged, her voice light and delicate as she spoke.

Tygra followed her, entranced. "All right."

* * *

Not far away, Chilla balanced on a high tree branch in an attempt to locate the secret settlement from a higher view than the forest floor. It was a natural assumption that the place would give off some sort of light at night, and from a high point she would be able to see it more easily. She scanned the area with little luck, until suddenly she was struck with the odd sense that she was being watched. Immediately she turned, and the sharp movement caused her footing to slip. She was unable to recover in time, and she let out a raspy shriek as she tumbled from the branch to the hard ground below. She instinctively braced herself for the impact, but it never came, and instead she felt something—or rather, someone—catch her.

"You should be more careful," a pleasant and charming male voice informed her.

Even more surprised, Chilla looked up at her benefactor and found herself in the arms of a tall and strong human-looking man. She had the sense, however, that his looks were deceiving and the man was no run-of-the-mill weak slave-fodder human. His silky hair was as dark as night itself, far better groomed and kempt than any she had seen on a primitive such as a warrior maiden, and it contrasted sharply with his pale skin, especially in the darkness. She noticed that he was dressed in a tunic that hung loosely about his shoulders and flowed from his waist like a toga, and that he watched her with piercing eyes as blue as the crescent insignia on her chest. "Are you all right?" he went on to ask, seemingly unaffected by her silence or the way she stared at him.

"Um, yes," Chilla responded gruffly. She was suddenly very aware of her awkward position, irritated that she had not only shown weakness, but was also in a situation where gratitude was expected of her, and to a non-Lunatac at that. "Thanks."

The man's face lit up with a smug smile as he set her on the ground. "I'm always willing to help a beautiful woman in need."

The independent Chilla regarded him coolly, but not aggressively. "Nice line."

"Ah, I'm being quite sincere, Chilla," the man said with a note of seriousness, although his demeanor remained disarming and friendly even as she visibly started at the realization that he knew her name. "I know you're not used to that given the rather… uncultured… company you keep, but I recognize true beauty when I see it."

Chilla's gaze hardened. "How do you know who I am?"

"I know a lot of things. You may not know me, but I know quite a lot of who and what dwell on Third Earth. I know you and your friends choose to live in DarkSide, known to even the most foolhardy of Third Earth's peoples as a place better left not even visited, much less inhabited, and that in and of itself is most," he grinned, "fascinating." He paused as she stared back at him. Her expression was a mixture of curiosity and distrust, manifesting in a silent challenge for him to prove himself further to her. Seemingly amused by that, he chose to indulge it. "I also know that you, Chilla, are a Lunatac, originally from the Plundarrian Moons. You have abilities to manipulate the winter elements in ways that make the Snowman of Hook Mountain look ill-adjusted to his climate." He stepped closer, emboldened by her lack of aggressive reaction. "I also know you're looking for me."

"For you," she repeated, her tone still somewhat dubious.

"For someone from my village to cure your companions from the state the fulxiclan left them in."

Chilla blinked. "The fulxi—the vapor at the ruin?"

The man nodded. "The very same. That's why I found you. I came to help you. And a good thing I did, if I do say so." His smile broadened, and he extended his hand to her. "After all, it'd be difficult to hike through the forest with a bad leg or ankle from that fall, don't you think?"

"I suppose." Although hesitantly, she took his hand. She had expected that she would have to get the cure the Thundercats were after by force or intimidation if she found those that had it. The free offer of help was an unexpected and pleasant surprise, and while she normally would not deign to interact so closely with a human-like creature, she made an exception that time.

"My name is Damien. It's a pleasure to meet you, Chilla."

To her surprise, Chilla did not find his conversation off-putting either. Instead she found herself rather taken in by his charming demeanor. She did not dwell on why, but with each passing moment she found her attention drawn to her mysterious benefactor more and more. It was not simply his handsome face, a strange notion to her considering that she did not tend to find non-Lunatacs attractive, nor was it his flirtatious charm. Usually she saw right through such behavior and considered men like that to be full of it and only after one thing. Generally she made sure they knew it, too, for she had certainly told Alluro off more than once in the many years she had known him. How strange it was, then, that Damien did not have that effect on her. "Nice to meet you too," she answered.

"Come with me." He led her down a path that bore sharply to the east, echoing and encouraging the smile that had begun to form on her frosty face with an encouraging one of his own.

"Where are we going?"

"To my village," he told her with a sly and inviting look. "There you'll find not only what you need, but anything you need _or _desire." He squeezed her hand in a way that bordered on suggestive, and rather than recoil from it, Chilla was instead enticed as they began to walk.

Not far away, and unbeknownst to both Chilla and Damien, Jackalman peered out from behind a patch of brush with a perplexed look. He was not sure what all he had just seen, but nothing about it sat well with him. "I'd better see what they're up to," he murmured to himself. The stranger Damien seemed off somehow, too friendly, too helpful, and just _too_ conveniently nice to be true. And Chilla, since when did the ice woman react so friendly to anyone, even the other Lunatacs? While he supposed she might have been just acting in a way to ensure that she got what she wanted, his instincts warned him that it was something more than that. And while he did not particularly care about Chilla being taken, the one doing the taking did concern him, especially if he did indeed have the elixir that they needed. Jackalman was not about to let Chilla's sudden lapse of judgment jeopardize their shot at getting that, and after only a fleeting moment of consideration, he decided to follow her and Damien in secret.

* * *

Tygra's eyes grew wide with wonder as Celeste led him into her village. Although the place seemed primitive by his standards, it also looked to be prosperous and lavish for what it was. The few inhabitants he saw had a similar dress and style to Celeste, and while not all had the distinctly human appearance that she did, they all seemed as though they belonged regardless. It did not seem like anyone there wanted for anything, and poverty was not anything that those who lived there had to worry about. Celeste remained silent as she led Tygra down a long cobblestone path that served as the main road, up to a grand stone structure with high archways and columns that he guessed was housing for the nobility of the people that lived there.

"I can't believe none of us have ever seen this place before! It's magnificent!" the impressed Tygra exclaimed.

"There are those who'd take great pleasure in destroying our home and taking it from us, so we use our magic to protect it. Only those who we deem worthy can find it," Celeste explained as she led him through the largest archway inside the building. Tygra saw that it was no less lovely inside, with rich tapestries on the walls and golden braziers lighting their way, casting an inviting glow that reflected off of the flowering plants, mirrors, and multicolored glass windows artfully arranged in every room and corridor.

"In that case, I'm very honored," Tygra said.

Celeste played her fingers lightly on his forearm. "I could tell from the moment we met that there was no question that you were indeed worthy, Thundercat Tygra. Strength, kindness, and virtue radiate from your entire being." They went through another hallway that led through a second set of doors and onto an outdoor patio. Heavy stone furniture made luxurious by velvet and satin pillows embroidered in intricate detail was arranged as though it was just waiting for guests to arrive. A banquet table was already set, filled with fine food and drink just waiting to be indulged in. "Please, Tygra, sit down and make yourself comfortable. It's been a long and tiring day for you. Take a moment to rest."

"Thank you, but I can't rest now," Tygra insisted. "I need to get that elixir to Cheetara as soon as possible. I can't let her down."

Smiling back at him in a way that seemed she was both concerned but also humoring the alarmist whims of child, Celeste laid a hand on the tiger's shoulder. "Cheetara will be fine in the time it takes to get what you need. Why not relax and regain your strength while I get it for you? Too little rest isn't good for you, my striped warrior. I can sense your weariness. It'll do your cheetah friend no good if you're too exhausted to get the elixir back to her." Her tone was gentle and soothing as she spoke, and Tygra looked from her to the plush and inviting seats with a mixture of temptation and guilt. "Go on," she urged. "Please, accept my hospitality and let us comfort you for a little while, before you take the elixir and are on your way through the wilds of Third Earth to your Lair once again."

It seemed as though the tension and anxiety he felt fled his body at her touch, and despite his misgivings he began to relax. He sat down in one of the chairs, and the soft cushions were as delightful as if he had sat upon a cloud in the heavens themselves. _I suppose there's no harm in relaxing while she gets the elixir,_ he mused, as his eyes wandered over the feast laid out on the banquet table to the lovely woman offering him such delights.

Celeste could sense his willingness to linger, and she smiled at him with a twinkle in her eye that betrayed the slightest hint of intentions less than honorable. Tygra was oblivious to it, however. "You should eat to keep your strength up," she went on to say, and without waiting for an answer from Tygra she gestured to a servant-girl standing by the table. "Mirlana! Bring our guest some food and wine!" The servant immediately set about her task, assembling a tray of treats in no time, and brought it over to him. She poured Tygra some wine and offered him a plate of what seemed to be first-class gourmet fare, carefully sliced meats and cheeses, finger-food pastries, and nibbles of exotic and scrumptious-looking fruit.

A growl from his stomach tempted Tygra further, reminding him that he had not eaten since Cheetara fell ill, but he felt a pang of guilt for indulging when she lay sick waiting for him. "That's very kind of you to offer, but…"

"Nonsense!" Celeste's voice took on a firm and authoritative lilt. "You need nourishment, don't you? You Thundercats seem to be very strong, but I'm sure it's not infinite. You're exhausted. If you plan on making the journey back to your friend tonight, you'll need to keep your strength up."

Tygra smiled wanly, accepting defeat, and picked up a goblet. "I see you come from the same school of thought as Snarf. All right. You do have a point." He sipped at the wine, a rich and sweet drink unlike any he had ever had before. Almost immediately a warm sensation flooded his body and lulled him into a deeper state of relaxation that coaxed him into drinking more of it. It was not long before he finished all he had been given, and asked for more. While he waited for the servant to pour it, he sampled the food, finding it to be every bit as delicious as it looked.

Celeste left briefly, leaving him on his own to enjoy the food and drink while he waited for her, and the more he consumed, the more comfortable and relaxed he became. Time seemed to come to a standstill, and when Celeste returned and sat beside him, he did not even manage to get the words out to inquire about the elixir before she began to rub his shoulders. Her touch was every bit as pleasant as everything else she offered, and when she drew closer, massaging him in an almost intimate way, he did not pull back or question it, but merely sank deeper into his seat and relaxed contentedly. "So this is the good life…" he murmured, at that point tempted by the wanted creature comfort of sleep, just for a few moments.

A coy and very pleased grin spread across Celeste's pretty red lips as he drifted off. "So good you might never want to leave," she whispered, and leaned down and kissed his cheek. That time there was no mistaking the mischievous intent in her expression, but Tygra's closed eyes never saw it.

* * *

Luring her back to the village much in the same way Celeste had done with Tygra, Damien brought Chilla out onto the same garden patio that Celeste and Tygra were already relaxing on. Chilla had been just as impressed by the secret sanctuary and its noble quarters as Tygra had been, although unlike Tygra she had kept mostly silent about it. Also in a way similar to how Celeste had offered the food and drink of her home to Tygra, Damien offered the ice woman their hospitality. Chilla was far less conflicted about the notion than the tiger had been, however, and she was not about to turn down an offer of free food and cushy seats when all she had to look forward to at home was the industrial "comforts" of Skytomb. In her mind, Alluro owed her for the inconvenience of trekking out to the unicorn forest to begin with, and it was not like while he was comatose he would even notice if she took a few minutes of pleasure to herself. He certainly would have done the same if their roles had been reversed.

Damien was the first to notice that they were not alone as they came out onto the garden-lined patio. "Sister!" he called out to Celeste, who smiled back at them.

"Damien, you've returned. And with another visitor, I see."

The raven-haired man's smile broadened. "Yes. This lovely lady is Chilla. She's come for the elixir to heal her sick friend."

"Oh! Just like Tygra here," she remarked. "He came for the same thing. How interesting that these… adversarial… factions all came to us with the same need, hmm?"

"Yes," Damien said, and cast a curious glance at the snoozing Tygra. He raised an eyebrow, but Celeste spoke up before he could comment further on it.

"The poor thing was so exhausted that he fell asleep. I didn't have the heart to deny him rest."

Chilla missed the knowing smile that passed between Celeste and Damien when she said that, and instead frowned when she saw a Thundercat had already beaten her there. "Tygra and I might be after the same thing, but we're not on the same side," she pointed out as she glowered at the tiger.

Celeste regarded Damien's companion with a look of warning. She was not overtly unfriendly, but not acquiescent either. "Our home is peaceful and we've no quarrel with or interest in your outside differences. We'll share the elixir with you both, but don't bring your out-world troubles here." She beckoned to the servant girl again. "Mirlana, come here and see to it that Damien's guest is made comfortable."

"Yes, Lady Celeste." The servant hastily led Chilla to an unoccupied seat and served her the same assortment of wine and food Celeste had given Tygra earlier.

Satisfied with how the servant carried out her tasks, Celeste returned her attention to her brother. "Damien, I'll return in a while. I'm having the elixir prepared for Tygra and I'll have a vial of it made for your friend as well to take with her."

A careful observer might have noticed a conspiratorial look pass between the pair, but neither the unconscious Tygra nor the distracted Chilla saw it. "I'll join you in a bit," Damien told his sister with a nod, and once she left, he sat down beside Chilla. "Is it to your liking?" he asked, referring to the treats she held in her gloved fingers.

"It's wonderful," an uncharacteristically enthusiastic Chilla answered. "I haven't had food this good since I left..." She paused and amended her words as it occurred to her that alluding to why she had left her home Moons might make her benefactor less charitable toward her, "well since I've been away from the Moons with the others. A long time." She drank the wine and felt the same sensations that Tygra had when he had tasted the drink. A relaxing sensation came over her, faster than that induced by any other wine she had ever consumed, and she settled more deeply into the comfortable cushions of her chair.

Damien leaned closer to her, his eyes intent on hers as their gazes met. "Your friends seem to bring you down and hold you back. Why do you let them?"

Normally Chilla would have iced the man for asking such an invasive, personal, and presumptuous question, but the relaxing effects of the wine were already showing in her mood. "They don't do anything I wouldn't do," she told him dismissively. "Sure, Luna's a little overbearing at times… all right, a _lot_ overbearing, but we all do all right."

"Indeed," Damien said, switching gears as he picked up on her defensive tone. "No need to justify anything to me," he went on to say, his tone markedly more sympathetic and understanding. "I didn't mean to seem judgmental; it's just that you appear so unhappy. I can count the times you've smiled since we met on one hand." He took her hand and held it in his, stroking her fingertips gently as he looked into her hard Lunatac eyes once more. "Such a shame. Your smile is beautiful."

Nearby in the bushes and undetected by those on the courtyard, Jackalman listened to the exchange. He had successfully followed Chilla and her new friend all the way to the village, and at that moment he was covering his mouth to keep from laughing out loud and giving himself away to those he eavesdropped on. _This Damien guy is using every cheesy pick up trick in the book, and she's falling for it,_ he thought with a snicker. The Chilla being wooed was so different than the Chilla he knew, and he would have expected that she was more experienced than that to fall for such obvious flattery. Then again, he supposed that a woman with her abrasive personality probably did not get too far in the romance scene anyhow, regardless of how attractive a man might find her.

Oblivious that she was being watched, Chilla found herself briefly lost in Damien's exotic blue human eyes. The moment proved fleeting, though, and she snapped out of it a moment after she realized she was staring at him like some pathetic teenager with a crush. "I shouldn't waste time here," she muttered suddenly, and set her goblet down and stood. "I need to get the elixir back to Skytomb." The excuse was valid; saving Alluro _was_ the purpose of her mission. Even if he was an arrogant jerk, she did not want to see him die because she spent too much time lazing around after a suave stranger offered her a meal better than Luna's cooking.

Damien also rose, seemingly unfazed by Chilla's resistance to his charms. "Very well then. I'll find Celeste and get it for you right away. I'll see you in a little while, my dear." He leaned over kissed her hand gently, and then turned and walked out without another word.

Surprised at his compliance, Chilla remained there, standing almost trancelike as he vanished through the marble archway. Rarely were the men she knew so… reasonable. Even after he was long gone, her stare remained fixed upon the exit through which he had gone. "He's so charming..." she whispered to no one in particular, completely unaware of the rapt and love-struck smile on her face.

Chilla also had not noticed that Tygra had drifted back into consciousness. He sat up with a start when he noticed that he was not alone, and not with Celeste, but Chilla. He tensed, ready for an ugly confrontation with the Lunatac. "Chilla? What on Third Earth are you doing here?"

The ice woman instantly snapped back into reality, and glared at the tiger, ready to ice him if he uttered one more word that displeased her. "The same thing you are: getting that elixir. We know you Thundercats decided to get it on your own without telling us, even _after _Luna was foolish enough to help you. Goes to show how good your so-called honor is," she hissed contemptuously.

Tygra bristled at her accusation and stood to face her. "We never intended to keep it from you. We just wanted to make sure we got it first," he argued. "We know full well that if we told you Lunatacs or Mutants and you got it first, that Cheetara would never get it."

"Of course not. We're not weakly sentimental like you," Chilla growled back.

"And you're so proud of that," Tygra said coldly. He looked away for a moment before he asked another question. "Did Celeste bring you here too?" He had trouble imagining that the lovely stranger that had offered him help would be fooled into thinking that Chilla's motives were as altruistic as his own, and in the same vein, it made him wonder for a moment whether there was more to her than he might have thought.

"No," Chilla said flatly. "Her brother Damien did."

The answer came as a surprising relief to Tygra, who realized he was glad that he did not have to question Celeste, and he felt a shade of guilt for doing so. How could he doubt someone such as her? "They're fine people," he said admiringly. "Celeste is wonderful."

"Not as wonderful as Damien," Chilla countered, and smiled. "He's the most amazing man I've ever met." The words sounded alien even to her as she spoke them, but even still she did not amend or condemn them, even inwardly.

Still listening in from his hiding spot nearby, Jackalman could not say the same. He had nearly puked at Chilla's remark. _What's the matter with her? Chilla doesn't act like this, even when she wants something!_

Unaware of the Mutant's presence, Tygra shook his head in bemusement as he regarded Chilla. "This is strange," he admitted. "Here we are, after the same thing, both alone, and not fighting… at least not with weapons anyway."

"Yes, it _is_ strange," the Lunatac hissed. A cruel gleam lit in her eyes for a moment as she looked back at him. "But for some reason, I just don't feel like fighting you right now, like it's not worth it. Celeste said she didn't want us to and… well I'm in too good a mood to let _you_ ruin it anyway." She turned her gaze toward one of the brazier's fires, watching the flames and shadows dance against the stone wall. "Something about this place just doesn't seem to want it."

"It wants us to be peaceful," Tygra said with a hint of a smile. "I feel it too."

"I suppose," grumbled Chilla. There was little emotion in her voice, but the absence of malice in it as she spoke to the tiger was telling enough.

"Well in that case, how about a truce between us, at least temporarily?" Tygra offered. "For the reason that we've come for the same reason and are on the same side this time."

Chilla nodded. "This time," she emphasized, "and yes, temporarily."

Those words from the Lunatac led Jackalman's jaw to go slack. Was that really Chilla, the same Chilla he had known for years, agreeing to a truce with a _Thundercat_? If it was not such a preposterous notion and he did not already know better, he would have suspected that someone had switched the icewalker with a body double when he had not been looking. Even more so now than before, Jackalman was glad he had followed her to the village. Clearly some outside force was at work, and if he wanted to ensure that Monkian got that elixir, he would have to keep tabs on it.

Damien and Celeste then returned from inside, each holding a delicate glass vial filled with a shimmering red liquid. Celeste went to Tygra's side and Damien joined Chilla's. "We've brought you the elixir you need," Celeste said, and handed the vessel she held to the tiger. He took it from her and eyed it with fascination, shaking it gently and watching the bubbles sparkle in the moon and fire light.

"Thank you," he said, and suddenly he felt a pang of sadness as he realized his visit had come to an end. It seemed too soon, even though he knew Cheetara was at home and needed him back with the elixir as soon as possible. He faced Celeste with a regretful but grateful look. "I'd better get this back to the Lair right away. Cheetara needs it. I owe you a great deal of gratitude, Celeste. If there's anything I can do..."

Celeste smiled at him, a flirtatious and seductive smile that made Tygra want to do anything she asked. "Perhaps one thing."

Tygra halted where he stood and watched her expectantly, hopefully even. "Anything."

"Come back and see me again soon," she said, and put a welcoming hand on his arm in a gesture of parting. The fleeting pleasure of her touch made him want her closer to him and made him nearly purr with desire.

"I will," he promised. "As soon as I can after I get this to Cheetara."

"I look forward to it. Come, I'll walk you back to the forest." She smiled graciously and took his arm, pleased with how eager he seemed. Her magic was working beautifully on him, and he was blissfully unaware of it. Her smile did not let on, however, not even to the spying jackal in the bushes.

"I'd love that," Tygra replied with a shy smile as they made their way to the village border. It had been so many years since he had felt so charmed by a woman, and perhaps because it had been so long it made it that much harder for him to think about it clearly. It was not just her beauty, but so many other things about her, such as her kindness and grace, that drew him to her. It was like he lost all sense of reason when she looked at him, and he could not get her out of his mind, even with his duty to help Cheetara also weighing on it.

Once Celeste and Tygra were on their way, Damien handed Chilla her vial of the elixir. "I suppose this means you'll be on your way now too," he said with an undisguised hint of disappointment.

Chilla was also less subtle about the conflicting desire to want to stay rather than go back and deal with the other Lunatacs and Mutants so soon. "Believe me, I'd rather not, but Alluro does need this. And I suppose that Mutant too," she said in a way that made it clear Monkian was at best an afterthought.

The look on Damien's face indicated that he was not thrilled with her answer, but his façade remained intact well enough for her benefit. "Alluro is lucky that you care so much for him."

"Hah. Care is a strong word. I don't _hate_ him, and I don't want him dead." She sneered. "Though if it had been Luna, you might've been able to convince me to stay for a few more drinks before leaving."

"Still," Damien pressed, "it seems to me he doesn't deserve you. I've seen enough of your group to know how arrogant and selfish the hypnotist is."

"To put it mildly," Chilla agreed. She found herself wondering if Alluro would have gone back as readily on her account, which was exactly what Damien had hoped she would ponder. "But with so many Thundercats around and as useless as the Mutants are, we need all the Lunatacs we have," the icewalker said after a moment, clutching the vial of elixir more tightly in her gloved hand.

"They need you, at the very least," Damien mused, and eyed her with another pointed look to make her think. "But do you need _them_, really? Or do they just use you?"

The remarks had their desired effect, and Chilla snapped back at him angrily. "_No one_ uses me!"

"No, of course not." Damien's words were conciliatory and apologetic, calculatedly so to someone with a sharp enough eye to catch it. "You're too perceptive for that, aren't you Chilla?" He smiled at her. "Forgive me. It was just a friendly warning." He placed his hands over hers, sandwiching them between his warm flesh and the smooth glass vial. The touch was soothing and pleasant, and Chilla found herself drawn into his gaze again. "Let me at least offer you this. If you ever do decide you've had enough of them and want to get away… you know where I live. I'd be more than willing to help you forget about them and the trouble they bring." He leaned closer, almost as if he was going to kiss her, but he did not. "Take care of yourself, icy one," he finished, and then delivered the light kiss on her lips that he had hinted at moments before.

The warmth of his lips on hers was as delightful as it was fleeting, and Damien withdrew and vanished into the shadows of his estate before she had a chance to say anything. She remained where she stood for a long moment, unable to get him out of her mind, before she turned and began the lonely walk back to the Ice Runner without him.

* * *

Once the initial shock of all that he had witnessed wore off, and after the patio was seemingly deserted and it was safe to do so, Jackalman collapsed in a fit of laughter. The Mutant could hardly believe how Damien had so successfully managed to sweet-talk the icy Chilla. It was something he would have thought impossible if he had not seen it with his own eyes, and he could hardly wait to share it with the other Mutants, who undoubtedly would find it as humorous as he did.

Unfortunately Jackalman was so caught up in his mirth that he neglected to realize that he was still trespassing on Damien and Celeste's realm and that he was not as alone as he had thought. A low voice from behind seethed with fury. "You find something amusing, Mutant?"

Jackalman spun around and saw an absolutely livid Damien standing above him. The man's handsome face was twisted into an inhuman scowl and his eyes glowed with an evil light that made the Mutant's blood run cold. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that spying is rude, subcreature?" he hissed venomously.

"I wasn't spying," the now unnerved Mutant hedged. "I was looking for Chilla. We're friends."

"Friends indeed," Damien replied with narrowed eyes. "You can't fool me as easily as you fool the other creatures on this planet. I know all about you Mutants and who you are. Repulsive and primitive creatures," he said with contempt. "And you were most certainly _not _invited to our village."

Ignoring the insults in light of the very real threat his instincts warned him that Damien posed, he backed away slightly. He might have looked human, but it was very clear to the jackal that there was something supernatural about him, and Mumm-Ra had taught the Mutants the lesson that mages, immortals, and other such creatures were not lightly trifled with. "Don't worry about it then, because I was leaving anyway," he said, and took another step backwards.

Unfortunately Jackalman backed right into Celeste, who when he turned to look at her, had every bit the unnatural and wicked appearance that her brother did. Her pretty face was twisted into a cold and vindictive sneer, and her teeth glinted with sharp points that resembled more the fangs of a ferocious beast than the human-like façade she maintained for Tygra. "Oh no you're not," she corrected him snidely. "You see, Mutant, _nobody_ trespasses on our grounds without paying the price for it."

"Look, I was just passing through," Jackalman argued, a whine creeping into his voice betraying the fear he felt. "I'll go right now, and forget I ever saw this place. Do whatever you want with Chilla. It's no fur off my back."

"I intend to," Damien said, and bared his own glistening fangs at the Mutant. He reached for Jackalman, his form growing three times as large as he did so, and Jackalman realized in horror that he was indeed dealing with a demon or similar supernatural creature. He did the only thing he could, and broke into an adrenaline-fueled run, but Damien shot a blast of energy from his hand that struck Jackalman squarely in the back and knocked him to the ground. Celeste was at the fallen Mutant's side in a flash, and pulled him into a chokehold that should have been impossible had she truly been a human as she once appeared.

"What are you?" the struggling Jackalman gasped. "Demons of Mumm-Ra's?"

"We're not associated with the demon priest, other than that we serve the same masters," Celeste hissed. "And that's enough out of you. Ponder the rest of your questions rotting in the dungeon, which is where you'll spend the rest of your miserable life until we decide to end it for you. Grab his feet, Damien."

"I'd be delighted to, sister," he laughed, and lifted the other half of the jackal off the ground. The two then carried their new captive into the palace, which to Jackalman was hardly as welcoming as Tygra and Chilla saw it. On their way down the twisted stone stairs that led to the dungeon, they passed Mirlana, the servant girl from the patio, who gave the Mutant prisoner a sympathetic look.

Damien caught it and fixed his burning gaze upon her. "Don't waste your pity on this creature, Mirlana. He's not worth it." Before she could react, Damien and Celeste retreated down the stairs and hauled Jackalman into the dank prison. Damien used magic to open one of the cells, and the two roughly threw the stunned jackal onto the floor. Celeste then closed the barred door, and the ominous sound of a lock clicking into place echoed throughout the chamber. Damien and Celeste laughed cruelly when Jackalman then met his cellmate, a moldering skeleton of a long-dead prisoner, and climbed the stairs together to leave him in his misery.

Once they were back in the open summery night air of their estate, their features reformed into the pleasing forms that they held earlier, and Damien turned to his sister. "We shouldn't have let them leave. Now they may bring others back to look for that Mutant."

Celeste laughed his concern off. "Don't be paranoid. Tygra is well under my spell, and from what I observed, the Lunatac Chilla is under yours. When they return, it won't be to find that loathsome creature, trust me." She eyed the distant trees and her smile broadened in anticipation. "When they come back, it'll only be for us."

Damien put his arm around his sister's waist and mirrored her conniving smile. "And we'll finish what we started. We'll seduce them and take their energy little by little until they are nothing but more slaves for us, mere shells of the warriors they once were, while their power feeds and furthers our own strength."

Celeste rested her head on Damien's shoulder. "It's been too long since we've fed on such strong mortal toys. Fresh energy, especially this alien energy, will be delicious."

"And when we're done, what pretty ornaments they'll make to go with the rest of our villagers… living for all eternity here but unable to leave… being our playthings for all time."

* * *

It was nearing midnight when Tygra walked into Cat's Lair holding the vial of the life-saving elixir. "I got it! We can save Cheetara!" he shouted victoriously as he ran into the main foyer.

"Tygra! Oh thank Jaga!" Snarf exclaimed, greeting him with several of the other Thundercats. "We were all worried about you out there in the woods!"

"Yes, the rest of us returned hours ago, and we didn't find anything," Lion-O said. "Where have you been? We weren't able to get in touch with you."

"That's strange. I was in the hidden village with Celeste. She's the one who gave me the elixir," he explained. "Maybe their magic blocks communications. Their people seem to be well versed in it. Oh, you wouldn't believe how amazing she is and her village is," he breathed, a faraway look in his eyes as he mentioned her.

Panthro smiled. "You can tell us all about it later, but let's get this to Cheetara now."

"Of course," Tygra said, slipping back to reality. "How has she been?"

"The same," Lion-O answered with a somber shake of his head. "There's been no change in her condition, for better or worse. Pumyra and the kittens are in with her now."

"The kittens?" Tygra said, and glanced at a timepiece. "It's kind of late."

"Snarf snarf, they couldn't sleep. Too worried, like the rest of us," Snarf lamented as they made their way down to the medical bay.

The snarf's statement inspired a pang of guilt in Tygra for lingering as long as he did in Celeste's village now that he was back among his friends and the gravity of Cheetara's situation in his face once again. He hoped that the elixir would work fast enough to make up for it, and as long as Cheetara was healed again, that was the important thing, he told himself.

Pumyra and the kittens brightened when the ensemble of Thundercats joined them at Cheetara's bedside. "You're back! And what's that?" the puma asked, glancing at the vial in the tiger's hands.

"The elixir," Tygra said, and Lion-O followed him up with an elated nod.

"The one from the scrolls. He found the people that make it."

"Oh, thank Jaga!" WilyKit exclaimed.

Tygra went to Cheetara's beside and uncorked the elixir. A sweet scent reminiscent of citrus blossoms wafted up from the bottle. "Hold her up," he said to Pumyra, "and I'll administer it."

"Wow, that's the cure?" WilyKat asked, eyeing the bottle curiously. "It looks good enough for all of us to drink."

Snarf was up on his tail in a flash. "Snarf, I wouldn't recommend that! We don't even know what's in it or what it'd do to someone healthy."

"I can't imagine anything Celeste makes being harmful," Tygra said, his tone oddly snappish as though Snarf had accused her of something even though the comment had been innocuous.

Meanwhile Pumyra leaned the unconscious Cheetara up with help from Panthro at her side. WilyKit joined her brother in looking at the elixir, amazed at how it continually bubbled. "Did they say how fast it'd work?" she asked.

"No," Tygra replied brusquely. "Hopefully it's fast." He looked to Pumyra. "Is she ready?"

The puma nodded. "Go slowly, and make sure she swallows it and doesn't choke."

"Right." Tygra lifted the delicate vial and slowly poured a dose of the mystic elixir into the cheetah's open mouth. The fluid sparkled and shimmered as it flowed from the bottle, and a warm glow formed around Cheetara's mouth for a moment as Pumyra massaged her throat, mimicking the actions of swallowing to ease it along and ensure that she did not aspirate it. Tygra replaced the silver cork on the bottle with the remaining elixir, and Pumyra gently laid Cheetara back down while the rest of them stood back and waited. The following moments felt like an eternity to the Thundercats but to their collective relief, the elixir did indeed work fast and Cheetara's amber eyes opened. Clearly disoriented, the cheetah let out an incoherent murmur and then sat up to get her bearings.

"What happened? Where am I?"

Pumyra put an arm around her shoulders. "You're in the medical bay of Cat's Lair. You inhaled some poisonous gas back in DarkSide that put you in a coma. We've been trying to bring you out of it, but didn't have any luck until Tygra got us an elixir from a healer in the unicorn forest that had a cure for it," she explained. "How are you feeling?"

Cheetara blinked and listened to all that Pumyra said, as the memory of the battle in DarkSide refreshed itself in her mind. "I'm a little tired, but basically all right," she answered. "What about the Thundrillium? Did we get it? What about the others? I—I think a couple of the Mutants and Lunatacs might've gotten caught in it too. Did they?"

"The fight was a stalemate," Lion-O told her. "As for the Thundrillium, after you and the others fell, that wasn't important anymore. You were." He smiled and took her hand.

"Darn right," agreed Panthro. "No Thundrillium would ever take precedence over you."

"We were so worried we'd lose you!" WilyKat added, and gave her an impulsive hug.

Touched by the concern of the other Thundercats, Cheetara smiled. "Well, I'm a tough cheetah and you wouldn't get rid of me that easily anyway," she teased. "And I guess I ought to assume we won't get off that easy with the Lunatacs and Mutants that breathed the poison too, right?"

"No, we did promise to give it to them if we got a cure, in exchange for agreeing to help us earlier," Lion-O said, wearing an expression that indicated he looked forward to it about as much as the Thunderkittens looked forward to cleaning their rooms when Snarf insisted.

"They helped?" an incredulous Cheetara asked.

"About as little as possible," WilyKit explained.

WilyKat nodded along with her. "We asked them for blood samples from Alluro and Monkian to analyze to see if we could figure out what it was. They let us have them, but not without letting us have it, if you know what I mean."

"You won't have to give it to them," Tygra then volunteered. "I wasn't the only one that found the village. Chilla was there too. I guess they didn't trust us and spied on us to follow us there," he explained. "But they gave the elixir to her too, so they won't need ours."

Panthro chortled. "Well thank Jaga for small favors. Who'd have thought that them spying on us would work out to our benefit?"

Snarf let out a bristling mewl. "I'd say as long as it keeps us from having to trek back over to DarkSide and trust them to play fair at Skytomb, don't look a gift Lunatac in the mouth."

Easing her legs off the side of the stretcher upon which she had bee placed, Cheetara turned toward Tygra. "It sounds like we all owe your healer a debt of gratitude. Who was it?"

"Her name is Celeste," Tygra replied, smiling brightly as he spoke her name.

"What's she like?" asked Lion-O.

"Beautiful," the tiger said breathlessly, realizing only after he spoke it how spellbound he sounded as he did so. An embarrassed smile crept across his features as he finished answering, and he felt a flush touch his cheeks beneath his red and black fur. "Actually, she's a noble and a leader in her village. It's a lovely place, it's… er, well I didn't get its name, but they keep it hidden by magic away from strangers. They're psychic and know a lot about the people of Third Earth. She knew what happened and why I was there, so she found me while I was looking for her," he explained, and then smiled a bit wider, albeit somewhat shyly. "She actually said that my nobility attracted her to me, and went out of her way to help. She's so kind and generous and beautiful—"

"So you've said twice already," a grinning Panthro remarked. The other Thundercats also noticed, and exchanged amused looks as well.

Tygra's blush burned more fiercely at the panther's remark, and he looked away, clearing his throat.

The tiger's telltale reaction only served to egg Panthro on further. "Hmm, it sounds to me like you have a thing for this Celeste, Tygra."

Growing increasingly uncomfortable, Tygra shifted where he stood. It was not so much that he was ashamed of his feelings for Celeste as he was that he did not really understand them himself, and that he felt awkward and on the spot with his friend's good natured teasing. He was shy by nature and sensitive about such private matters. "No, that's not it at all," he insisted, as much to convince himself as them. "I—I just think she's nice, that's all."

"Suuuure it is," WilyKat teased back.

"Tygra's in love! Tygra's in love!" an equally amused WilyKit chanted in a sing-songy voice. Neither kitten truly realized that they were offending Tygra, and on some level he knew that, but still he was unable to control his reaction.

"I am not!" he growled back defensively, but unfortunately his face indicated otherwise.

Lion-O then joined in on the fun, much to Tygra's dismay. "Isn't that sweet?" he teased, grinning as widely as Panthro and echoing the twins' mirth.

Caught up in the jovial mood, the newly recovered Cheetara also giggled. "It is. He's very cute when he's in love."

The cheetah joining in was the last straw, and Tygra scowled. The kittens he could excuse as being childish and not knowing better, and he could even say the same for young-minded Lion-O, but Cheetara's quip had an extra sting to it that instantly changed his defensive embarrassment to a flash of anger. "Look, I went there to help you," he snapped irritably. "I don't appreciate being singled out for your amusement as thanks for it!"

Immediately the lighthearted mood in the room died and an awkward silence settled over it instead, each of the Thundercats feeling remorseful under the uncomfortable weight of Tygra's angry glare. "Aw, Tygra, we were just kidding. Sorry," WilyKat offered quietly.

Cheetara nodded along with WilyKat, instantly regretting her remark when she saw the effect it had on Tygra. The tiger was one of her closest friends and hurting his feelings was certainly something she never wanted to do. "I'm sorry Tygra. I didn't mean to offend you."

"Too late for that," Tygra retorted curtly, and left the room without another word. His heavy footfalls as he climbed the stairs echoed through a second uncomfortable silence that followed in his wake.

Lion-O blinked and looked at the door through which he had left in mild shock. "What did we say that was so bad?"

Sighing, Cheetara said, "Sometimes he gets touchy about his emotions. You know how shy he can be." She followed Lion-O's gaze to the stairwell. "We shouldn't have kept at it after he got quiet. Obviously he _does _have feelings for this Celeste woman, and he probably needs to sort them out."

Panthro nodded, also feeling a bit guilty for his part in teasing the tiger. "Yes, we ought to give him some time alone to cool off for now. He'll be back to himself before long." The rest of the Thundercats nodded and murmured in agreement, and the subject was dropped for the remainder of their conversation.

* * *

Miles away in the corner of Third Earth known as DarkSide, Chilla returned to Skytomb with her own vial of the elixir. RedEye had already returned earlier, having had no luck in finding anything, and none of the Mutants or Lunatacs had heard from either her or Jackalman. When she radioed them to let them know she was on her way back, they gathered in the landing bay and went with her to the medical chamber where Alluro and Monkian were laid up. On their way in, she filled them in briefly about her encounter with Damien and his exotic little village. Not surprisingly, she was pressed for many details about the place, as none of them had known about it or seen anything like it before, and she was still talking about it while Vultureman administered the elixir to Monkian and Alluro. The conversation died down as they waited to see if the antidote acted quickly, and they were as surprised as the Thundercats had been that it worked so fast. Indeed, it did seem like a magic potion to cure their perplexing sickness, for the comatose Lunatac and Mutant registered a strengthening in their vital signals almost immediately, and were fully conscious within minutes of receiving it.

Monkian was the first to sit up, and he clumsily brushed his large hand against his temple as he did so. "Hoo hoo... my head hurts."

"What's going on?" the disoriented Alluro murmured, stirring from his prone position and leaning up on his elbows once he realized that he was surrounded by Mutant and fellow Lunatac alike.

RedEye discarded the empty glass vial in a nearby sink and regarded him with an impersonal look. "You were poisoned by some kind of fog that you inhaled back at the ruins when we ambushed the Thundercats for their Thundrillium."

"Which we didn't get," TugMug said, wheeling over to RedEye's side.

"We only now got our hands on the antidote and gave it to you."

"I see," Alluro said, and blinked his eyes a few times to regain focus.

"Is that what happened to me too?" asked Monkian.

"Yes," answered Slythe, while added another bit of information to his earlier explanation.

"Chilla got it."

Both Monkian and Alluro shifted their gaze from the darkling to the icewalker. "I see," Alluro repeated, and looked to her to elaborate.

Chilla shrugged. "It wasn't that big a deal. The worst part of it was the time I spent eavesdropping on the Thundercats, bored to tears listening to them bemoan their poor little cheetah's fate."

"They promised to help us and share what cure they found, you see, in exchange for us allowing them to examine you for their own research," Luna explained, looking as though the experience put her out thoroughly. Alluro and Monkian, meanwhile both grimaced at the notion that the Thundercats had been around them while they were too ill to protest, and at the fact that Luna seemed more disgusted at her comparatively minor part in it than they were as the subjects.

"Of course, the cats were full of shit when they said they'd tell us what they learned," TugMug said, and shot Luna another "I told you so" look that she refused to dignify with more than a glower of her own. The graviton had already gloated ad nauseum about it in her opinion, and she was tired of listening to it.

"Which is precisely why I had Chilla spying on them in the first place," Luna pointed out curtly.

"Like I said, that was the worst part," Chilla finished, and then both her tone and expression shifted to one more pleasant. "We followed them to a place in the unicorn forest that they discovered had healers that treated your condition. We wanted to beat them there, and when we got there, I met someone rather fascinating," the goofy smile that had so amused Jackalman earlier returned briefly, a fact that did not go unnoticed by others in the room.

Luna eyed her curiously. "That was the Damien fellow you mentioned?"

Chilla nodded, and when she didn't say anything further, Alluro took up the role of questioning. "And who is Damien?" As one used to reading even the subtlest cues of emotion as a means to manipulate, the shift in Chilla's mood when the subject of him came up was rather telling, and he was very curious to know who it was that could have such a visible effect on his cold-hearted colleague.

"I slipped on a tree branch and he caught me when I fell," she said. Her features lit up with a hint of—was it fondness, Alluro wondered?—as she continued. "He explained to me that he was from the tribe we were looking for and that he knew why I was there. I think they're psychic as well as magic users, since he knew a lot about all of us. Anyway, he offered to help without me hardly saying anything, and took me to his village where he gave me the elixir."

TugMug raised an eyebrow and, as he so often did, voiced the innuendo that the others were only thinking. "And what did you have to do to get it from him?"

She glowered at the graviton. "Nothing. He just gave it to me."

Vultureman let out a dubious squawk. "And why would he do that?" the avian scoffed. "You're not exactly, caw, a warm and friendly personality."

An exasperated frost came out on her breath as she glared at the vulture. "Damien seemed to think so, Beaky."

Much like it had been with Jackalman, Chilla's defensive reaction was too much for Monkian to hold back his amusement at. "He probably got a good feel when he caught her, and was angling for a more thorough one, hoo hoo," the simian laughed. His remark in turn sparked a round of snide laughter from both of the other Mutants and TugMug as well, a casual snicker from RedEye, and smirks on Luna and Amok.

Chilla on the other hand was nowhere near as amused, and she shot a fire beam at the exam table Monkian still sat upon, making him skitter back in reaction. "Not everyone lives with their minds in the gutter," she hissed contemptuously. "Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that someone might have just liked me?"

At that, RedEye chortled again. "Because we know you."

That time she whirled around and spat a blast of ice in the darkling's general direction, and stalked toward the door, unwilling to listen to any more of it.

The ice Lunatac's display of temper and her consequent exit reminded Slythe of a more serious matter, one that he had not yet gotten the chance to question—the whereabouts of the member of the search party that had yet to return. He narrowed his yellow eyes and stepped toward her. "Wait just a moment, yesss?" he said, and when Chilla turned around to face him with a glower, he asked, "Where is Jackalman? If you got the elixir, he should've returned by now. Didn't you let him know?"

"Do you think I care what he does?" Chilla hissed back in annoyance. "I'm not his keeper, and he's a big boy. I'm sure even a Mutant as stupid as him can operate a communicator."

"But he went out with you to ssssearch, didn't he?"

"We split up. I haven't seen him since." Chilla looked at RedEye. "Didn't he say anything to you?"

RedEye shook his head. "I heard nothing from him or you after we split up until you came back."

His suspicion rising, Slythe's tail flicked from side to side. "You'd better not have pulled any dirty tricks against us Mutants, Lunatac!"

The accusation pushed what tenuous hold Chilla had on her temper closer to the edge, and her eyes blazed with unspent anger. "I _said_ I didn't see him."

"Then why isn't he back?" demanded Slythe.

Equally unimpressed with Slythe's accusations, Luna frowned at the Mutant leader. "Perhaps once he was no longer downwind of you three, he headed in the other direction for good," she quipped.

Ignoring Luna's barb, Vultureman followed Slythe's lead and narrowed his eyes at Chilla. Although he did not care all that much about Jackalman personally, his Mutant pride was not about to let one of the Lunatacs cross them in such a way and get away with it. "Caw, you _were_ out a long time, Chilla."

Chilla turned from where she stood at the door and walked dangerously over to Slythe and Vultureman. "What exactly are you accusing me of, Mutants?" she demanded, her breath heavy with intent to ice them both.

Slythe refused to back down. "You _were_ gone a while, yesss? What were you doing that took so long? Do you expect us to believe you were having tea with your mysterious friend Damien?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but for your information, reptilian, Damien gave me some wine at his estate while they prepared the elixir," she informed him icily. "So I relaxed a while before coming back. So what?" Although she did not care what the Mutants thought, she did not want to deal with their ridiculous paranoia in the mood she was in, either, and she had a feeling that Luna would squeal too much if she put them on ice permanently, tempting as it was.

Unfortunately her admission of having wine instead of tea was enough to tempt Alluro into making a remark, although not for the Mutants' benefit but for his own curiosity. "Wine, hmm?" he said with a smirk. "Rather smooth, this Damien."

While having the accusations of treachery dropped was welcome, the new subject that the psi turned the conversation to was no more welcome, as she did not care to explain herself to any of the other Lunatacs any more than she did the Mutants. "Nobody asked you," she snapped angrily. "I don't need to justify myself to any of you. Now why don't you stupid, primitive Mutants get out of Skytomb and go stink up your own fortress? You're no longer needed or wanted here."

"Yes, I think that's a wise idea," Luna agreed, and pointed her riding crop at Slythe. She knew Chilla well enough to know the warning signs of her about to lose her temper, and while she would not mourn their loss, she did not particularly care to clean up after a bloody brawl either. "Monkian's fit enough to make a fool of himself, and that's healed in my book. You three may all get out before we forcibly evict you, and your welcome is worn out permanently."

Slythe bristled at Luna's insulting tone, but chose not to start something that he and the other two Mutants were ill-equipped to finish while outnumbered two to one. "All right Luna, we'll leave, but if we find out you Lunatacs did something to Jackalman, you're going to be very sorry," he warned, and then stormed out with an equally indignant Vultureman and Monkian behind him.

"Well at least those annoying houseguests are gone," Luna muttered, and then frowned at Alluro. "You owe me for forcing us to put up with that."

"I didn't invite them, and I'd say you owe me for allowing the Thundercats to molest me in my sleep," the psi retorted haughtily, and then preened as he got to his feet. "Besides, my sparkling presence is repayment enough for anything you endured, I think."

"Hmph, hardly," Luna retorted, while Amok sighed beneath her.

TugMug, meanwhile, was still too amused by the notion of Chilla and her new "boyfriend" to let that subject go, and he wheeled over to her with an amused leer on his face. "So Chilla, just what _were_ you and Damien doing all that time while you were 'relaxing'?"

"While you were alone at his palace drinking wine," RedEye added, joining in on the fun with the graviton. He was not crude—or foolhardy—enough to instigate Chilla so overtly, but he did enjoy watching the sparks fly when someone else did it.

Not surprisingly, Chilla failed to see any humor in it, and she let out an angry growl at the pair of them. She was about to tell them exactly what she thought of their lewd innuendos when a remark from Alluro, eyeing her intently for a reaction, caught her off guard.

"Yes Chilla, for someone who didn't do anything she's ashamed of, you're awfully defensive about your little dinner date."

The remark struck a raw nerve, and she whirled around with icy daggers in her eyes for the psi. "And for someone who was just in a coma, _you're_ awfully energetic! I should've just left you to rot it in rather than waste my precious time looking for a way to save your worthless hide. You were a lot more tolerable when you couldn't open your mouth!"

Alluro took her reaction with surprisingly calm arrogance, although her words bit him a touch more than he would have ever admitted. "So sorry that I'm not as good company as your dear _Damien_," he responded, mocking her earlier impressed tone as he pronounced the name.

That time it was she that felt an unwanted sting in his words, and that angered her more than the snide remarks of the other two. "You got that right," she hissed coldly, before turning and leaving in a frosty huff.

* * *

Back in the quiet halls of Cat's Lair, the hour was very late when Cheetara made her way down the hallway toward Tygra's quarters. She felt terribly about their misunderstanding earlier, and hoped to talk to him and smooth things over. She had not seen him since he had left the medical bay, and she had not wanted to pressure him, but it bothered her that he still had yet to even come out to speak to any of them. It was rare for Tygra to get that angry, and it worried her. She approached his door and gave it a gentle knock.

"Tygra? Can we talk?"

When no reply came from inside, and she heard no sound of movement either toward or away from the door, her unsettling feeling grew stronger. She knocked again, that time more loudly. "Tygra, I'm very sorry about before," she offered in the hopes that he was at least listening on the other side even if he was choosing not to acknowledge it. "We really didn't realize you were so upset… and I know that's no excuse, but it's the truth. None of us would ever set out to belittle or hurt your feelings."

Cheetara paused and waited to see if he would answer, but again he did not. "Tygra," she started again, her voice taking on a pleading note that time, "can't we please talk? I understand if you're still angry, but at least say _something_."

An increasingly uncomfortable silence remained her only answer, and she frowned. "Are you in there, Tygra? Can I come in?" When she still got no response, she turned the knob and slowly opened the door. To her surprise, she discovered that she had been arguing and offering entreaties to an empty bedroom. She frowned, knowing that he was not anywhere else in the Lair, and if Lynx-O was not deliberately keeping mum at Tygra's request, he was not at the Tower of Omens either. She started considering where she might go to look for him when she noticed a note sitting on his bed. Fighting a worrisome feeling, she picked it up and read it.

"_I had to leave and see her again. Now that I know Cheetara is fine I see no reason not to go back. I don't know when I'll return, but if I'm needed I will see the cat signal. –Tygra. P.S.—This has nothing to do with what happened earlier. You're all forgiven."_

Now Cheetara was genuinely perplexed, and more than a little concerned. "Uh oh. This isn't like him at all, to just run off like this." Although it had been clear that Tygra was smitten with the Celeste woman, it was unsettling that he would up and leave to see her without telling any of them aside from the note. _Then again, maybe he just didn't want to talk to us about it because of what we said earlier._ While she believed that he was sincere in what he said in the note about forgiving them and that his leaving was not because of that, she was not naïve enough to think that it had not played a part in why he did not go directly to them. But why was he so eager to see her again, and so soon? Cheetara wondered. She reread the note, hoping to catch some cue or hidden meaning in what it said, but she saw none, other than a vague unpleasant feeling that she was not sure was her sixth sense giving her a warning or merely concern for her friend.

"I'd better show this to Lion-O," she decided, and folded up the note and ran down the hall.


	3. Chapter 3

Tygra was able to find Celeste's village again with ease, in fact with such ease it would almost suggest that some force drew him there. When he approached the limits of the hidden settlement, Celeste emerged from the misty night fog and greeted him with a beaming smile and a warm embrace. "Tygra! What a delightful surprise to have you back so soon!"

"I said I would, and I'm a cat of my word," he answered with a smile, one that grew broader the longer he looked upon her lovely face. "I—I couldn't stop thinking about you after I left. I couldn't wait to see you again."

That time it was Celeste's smile that widened, although Tygra did not pick up on the distinctly smug edge to it. "I'm so very flattered," she replied sweetly. "It's an honor to catch the attentions of a handsome warrior like yourself." She took his hand in hers. "Welcome back. Shall we go back to the estate?"

"I'd love to." He squeezed her delicate hand, so graceful and small in comparison to his feline ones, and walked with her to the palatial manor that was her home. She led him to the same courtyard they had spent time at earlier, and that time he found it even more enticing without the worry about Cheetara hanging over him. He noticed Celeste and Damien's servant girl pouring fresh wine nearby, although Celeste quickly dismissed her with a silent wave so that they were alone. Once she was gone, Celeste picked up the wine glasses the girl had poured and sat beside Tygra on a double-seated lounge.

Tygra took the drink Celeste offered him and sipped at the sweet wine. "I probably didn't get a chance to tell you before, but this is delicious. We don't have anything like this at the Lair. I don't think the Berbils, Wollos, or any of the other races we trade with make anything even close to it."

Celeste nodded and took a sip of her drink. "It's a special vintage that we create here. The recipe is unique to our kind, and we don't share it. Only those that have been to our village have had the privilege and pleasure of tasting it." She set her drink back down and drew him into her gaze with a suggestive and flirtatious look. "But that's just one of the many things you can only find here."

"Such as?" Tygra asked curiously, and she smiled back at him with an air of mystery.

"You'll see in time, my dear Tygra."

* * *

Out in the unicorn forest, Damien leaned against the trunk of a large elm tree smugly, waiting for Chilla to arrive. His scrying powers had shown him the vision of Chilla getting angry and leaving Skytomb, and he knew without a doubt that she was on her way to find him. After all, that was exactly what he had planned to ensure that he would have her for his toy and his alone. He was surprised at how easy the ice Lunatac had been to charm, given her frosty demeanor and distrust of strangers, but it seemed that even one made of ice could be melted with enough sweet words and magical wine to help her to "forget" her troubles, and the rest of her mortal friends right along with them. Once they were out of her mind, he could take all that he wanted from her with abandon, and by the time she would wise up to what was happening, she would have too little power to do anything about it, just like all the others. The once fearsome Chilla would be little more than a corporeal spirit bound to him, her ice blue shade a pretty slave to adorn his home for all time.

When he saw her approaching, he summoned the most charming smile he could and called out to her. "Chilla!"

"Damien!" she said, brightening visibly as she saw him waiting for her. "How did you know I came to find you?"

The dark-haired man draped an arm around Chilla's shoulders, and to his delight she made no move to rebuff the gesture, instead falling naturally into it. "I could sense your distress," he told her in a sympathetic tone. "I know I warned you about your friends, but I'm sorry to see how right I was about them after all. You deserve better."

A frown flashed across her face as she thought about them. "It's not any surprise to me that they're obnoxious, but the complete lack of respect… argh!" She exhaled a frosty breath of frustration. "See if I ever bother to try and help those idiots again. Making the lewd comments about you and me was disgusting enough, but those Mutants! The nerve of accusing me of bothering to attack that useless Jackalman! That flea-ridden fool wouldn't be worth the breath it'd take to ice him."

Damien pulled her closer to him and planted a light kiss on her forehead. "My dear Chilla, how terrible that you had to put up with such idiocy and ingratitude." He looked into her eyes, drawing her into his gaze. "Would an offer to stay with me at my home for a time cheer you up? Perhaps you can stay there while you think it all over?"

"As your guest?" She raised an eyebrow, as if the offer seemed too good to be true. Chilla was used to intimidating her way into getting what she wanted, rather than have it be freely offered without strings. Lunatacs were rarely so generous without an ulterior motive.

"My most _honored _guest," Damien emphasized, and grinned at her. "I'll treat you to a nice dinner, some wine, a lovely room, and you can forget all about them for as long as you want. In my home, you'll be treated like a queen."

That tempting description was all the convincing Chilla needed. "Lead the way."

* * *

On her way back from the kitchen where she had gone after Celeste dismissed her, the servant called Mirlana peered into her masters' courtyard just in time to see Celeste pull her Thundercat guest into a passionate kiss. While the tiger was clearly delighted, Mirlana winced at the sight, knowing all too well what her mistress was doing and what fate awaited the tiger. _So they've chosen to start feeding again,_ she lamented silently, feeling like it was only a short while ago that they had toyed with their last victims in such a way. That was the part that bothered her the most, the way that Celeste and Damien both played so cruelly with the hearts of those they sought to fulfill their unnatural needs. Each time it was harder and harder for her to witness, powerless to do anything about it. She quickened her pace as she walked away from the courtyard, trying as she always did not to think about how Damien had seduced her that same way all those years—and she did not even remember how many years it was now—ago. When she rounded the corner she then saw Damien, and on his arm was his newest prize, the strange ice woman called Chilla. "Oh no," Mirlana muttered to herself, "that fool came back too!"

Damien paused when he noticed his servant's presence, and gestured for her to come over. "Mirlana, take Chilla to our guest quarters, and see to it that she's made comfortable. I'm going to speak with my sister, but I'll be back shortly."

Mirlana nodded obediently, as she had no other choice but to do so. Defying Damien would be risking banishment from the village, and for one such as her who had already been a victim of her masters, that meant certain death. It was the place's magic that kept her alive, and while she would live forever if she remained there, if she left she would perish almost instantly.

Meanwhile, Damien turned to Chilla. "You're in good hands, my dear." He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her cool lips, and then left.

"Come this way." Mirlana beckoned to Chilla and led her through the manor's twisting corridors into a lavish room filled with plush furniture and ornamental plants. The windows were large and open to the air, creating a constant breeze that some would find chilly, but to Chilla was rather pleasant. "You can help yourself to anything you want. There's clothes in the chest, and a bath in the adjoining room."

"Does it run cold?" Chilla asked.

A wan smile crossed Mirlana's face. "It runs however you want it to. That's the nature of this place."

"Wow," Chilla said, not catching the full meaning of Mirlana's words. "This is the good life."

The servant wished that she could correct her on that, but she did not dare. Instead all she said was, "So it appears," and drew the drapes aside to allow more air flow.

Her answer surprised Chilla, and she thought haughtily that Mirlana must be as human as she looked if she was foolish enough to not realize how cushy she had it serving masters like she had in an ideal place like that. "What, you don't agree?" she said, eyeing the girl in a way that made her thoughts clear.

Mirlana only sighed, resigned that this one would be no different from the others. They never wanted to question what looked so ideal. She had not either, after all. She only wished that she had been sharp enough to notice the subtle cues as to the true nature of Damien and his domicile back when she might have had a chance to save herself from it. "Things aren't always what they seem," she told Chilla as she finished her task and started for the door. "Keep that in mind, while you still can," she finished quietly, and then left before she said more than that and put herself in danger. Chilla regarded her with a puzzled look, but did not say anything before she departed.

As she made her way back downstairs, Mirlana wondered if Chilla would see it coming, or if the tiger Celeste had latched onto would. The scenario was almost always the same, with only the names and faces and little parts changing at the whims of her masters. Long ago, Damien had come upon her in the forest and had seduced her with flattering words and the charm that she had now come to loathe and detest rather than bask in. He had convinced her that she would be happier with him than she would with her sister warrior maidens, and when he had first taken her in she had never been happier. The challenges of survival were gone, and there were no storms, no worries about food shortages, and no invasions of enemies or even the threat of beings such as Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living. Fun and laughter, pleasure and love were offered in abundance to her, at least while she still had true life energy for him to feed off of when they were together. But Damien's appetites were hearty, and his lust was never satisfied, and before long the vital energy he sought from her was used up, and she went from being his lover to his slave. At first she thought she had taken ill, but Damien explained it to her then, and oh-so-magnanimously offered her the chance to live forever, as long as she stayed with and served him in his home. He and Celeste would keep her alive and safe, just like the others, but they could never leave, and never, ever defy or question them. If she did, he had warned her, she would wither and die in banishment. She had seen instances of it with others who grew tired of their games, and knew it was not an idle threat. However sometimes there were times, such as that night, when she wondered for a moment if she would not be better off in the afterlife after sticking it to them for what they had done. Fear of death, and of damnation for her actions, for standing by and aiding her evil masters rather than face death, however, were powerful motivators to keep her from doing so, and so she never did. Sometimes, however, she wondered just how much more terrible death could be…

She was still wrapped up in her thoughts when she passed the heavy wooden door that led down into the dungeon area. She recalled when the jackal-man her masters had captured earlier was brought in, and wondered if he was still alive down there. Pausing in front of the door for a moment, Mirlana temporarily threw aside her caution and pulled it open a crack just wide enough to sneak through before closing it behind her. She always hated that part of the palace. It was cramped, dark, and forbidding, very unlike the spacious and luminous marble décor of the main floors. Quiet as a mouse, she stole along until she reached the cells. It did not take her long to find the prisoner she wondered about; he was the only one unfortunate enough to be held there at the time.

Jackalman saw her approach and lunged toward the bars in a rage. "Let me out of here!" he howled.

Startled, Mirlana stepped back, taking care to stay out of his reach as she was not sure if he would attempt to grab her. She put her finger to her lips and whispered, "I would if I was able. But it'd mean the end of me if I did." She looked the Mutant over, curious as she had never seen one of his kind before, and wondered if he was an alien that had come with the tiger or the ice woman. Whatever he was, she was glad to see that he had not been maimed or injured by her masters before he had been imprisoned, as she was relatively sure that whatever crime he had committed to wind up there, it likely paled in comparison to what his jailers were guilty of. "Why are you here?" she asked him. "What did they say your crime was?"

"Spying," the indignant jackal snapped at her. "That Damien didn't like me watching him sweet-talk Chilla."

"I'm sure he didn't. He'd never want to risk anyone warning her before he was finished with her," Mirlana said darkly. "So are you a friend of hers?"

Jackalman sneered and leaned against the bars. "Chilla's friend? Not quite. But I know her. I was with her looking for that elixir, since I don't trust those Lunatacs to share it with us Mutants when we need it too." He eyed her curiously. "Are you one of them?"

"I serve them."

Jackalman's brow rose. "Willingly?"

"As willing as any good slave," she answered noncommittally.

The answer confirmed Jackalman's suspicions that she was there for reasons that were as unknown to those who had imprisoned him as they were to him, and he wondered if that meant that she could help him after all. "My name is Jackalman," he offered in an attempt to win her over. "I'm one of the Mutants of Castle Plundarr."

She blinked at him without recognition. "I'm sorry. I don't know much about what lies outside the village anymore. It's been many years since I've been on the outside. I've been kept here for a long, long time. All I know about you newcomers to the world is what makes its way here, and that's very little."

"They keep a tight leash on their slaves," Jackalman noted. "How did you wind up here? Did they capture you like this and break you?" He gestured to the cells.

"Not like this," Mirlana admitted. "I once lived in the trees as one of the warrior maidens."

Jackalman nodded, recognizing the dark hair and build typical of the tree-dwelling human female tribe that Mirlana had. However, most of the warrior maidens he had encountered were fighters at heart, and not the type to be easily subjugated. The Mutants all knew that from experience, for more than once they had tried to do just that with the warrior maidens they had captured. It had yet to be a successful venture. He wondered if this particular woman was merely weaker than the average warrior maiden, or if Damien and Celeste had twisted her into someone almost unrecognizable as it seemed that Damien had been doing to Chilla. "So why did you come down here if they didn't send you?" he asked.

Mirlana glanced up the stairs, and then took a step closer to him, answering in a low whisper as if she feared the walls themselves could hear her. "I wondered if I could help you."

"Sure," he said, and tugged at the door. "Nyah, opening this would be a big help."

"I can't do that." She shook her head. "But I might be able to get some kind of message out to friends of yours, to someone who could free you, and help Chilla and the Thundercat before it's too late for them. Tell me who to contact and where they are, and I'll do my best."

Sneering in disbelief, Jackalman said, "It didn't look to me like Chilla or Tygra needed much help."

"They do," Mirlana asserted. "They just don't realize it yet. In fact, you're the lucky one of you three."

"Yes, I feel _real_ lucky," the Mutant retorted sarcastically.

"You mentioned a Castle Plundarr," Mirlana said. "Are there more of you there? Should I try to send a message to them? Where is your castle?"

"If a human shows up at Castle Plundarr, she'll be captured on sight," he warned, assuming that she meant that she would try and run there herself, or that she would send another human like her to do it instead. "To Mutants, you're slave fodder, much like you seem to be to Damien and Celeste." He then wrinkled his muzzle, not wanting to offend the woman out of helping him. "But if you think you can find a way to get me out of here, come here and I'll tell you whatever you need to know." Relieved and more than a little bit surprised that Mirlana did just that, Jackalman went ahead and proceeded to fill her in.

* * *

Back at Cat's Lair, Lion-O, Cheetara, Panthro, and Snarf gathered in the conference room discussing Tygra's parting note. Cheetara still held the paper in her hands with a distressed look upon her face. "I feel awful about this, Lion-O. It isn't like Tygra to just run off!"

"I agree," Snarf said, pacing upon the windowsill. "Tygra would normally tell us when to expect him back, but this time he didn't. What if it means he doesn't want to, that he's run off with this, rowr, strange woman? I'm worried!"

"Come on Snarf, Tygra's a big boy," Lion-O chided gently. "He said he'd come if he saw the signal, so I don't think he's abandoned us. He probably just wanted some time alone and to get to know this girl better without us getting involved." He frowned. "We probably did upset him more than we thought, and like Cheetara said before when she told us, he didn't want to have to explain it after we ribbed him about it."

"Even still, while falling in love can make us act silly sometimes, Tygra's generally more responsible than this," Cheetara argued. "He's not the type to run off on impulsive flights of fancy."

Panthro raised his eyebrows. "Not usually, no, but it's not like it's never happened before. Does the name 'Silky' ring any bells?"

"But that was different," Cheetara said with a shake of her mane. "Mumm-Ra disguised himself and drugged Tygra with a narcotic fruit. He was acting like an addict, not a love struck teenager." She paused, and her unsettled feeling about the situation magnified at the mention of the incident. "At least, I _hope_ it was different…"

Lion-O thought for a moment. "Well, Tygra does have a bit of a weakness for things that… for things that excite his senses," he conceded. "I mean, there was also the Keystone, but it had a power of its own too. I know you two were on New Thundera at the time, but Snarf and I can both attest that it made him act in ways that I'd say were very unlike the Tygra we know so well."

Snarf let out a shudder. "Bwrrr. He was pretty out of control, wasn't he?" he said with a sigh. "Thank goodness the Sword of Omens brought him to his senses and that wretched Keystone was destroyed. That's one piece of the Treasure of Thundera I won't regret losing for an instant. It nearly did him in."

"So what are you getting at?" asked Panthro. "You think Tygra's become addicted to this Celeste woman or something she has?"

"Maybe. Pleasure can be a powerful motivator," Lion-O suggested.

Cheetara frowned. "Intoxicating fruit and energy crystals are one thing, Lion-O, but sex? Tygra is more grounded than that."

Snarf shrugged. "Well, snarf, if you think about it, what is the difference between one sensual pleasure and another? Especially if that sort of urge is one he's been denied for some time. And if you'll all remember, Tashi managed to get a hold on all of us but you, Cheetara, and I don't think I need to spell out what she was selling to our minds in her gaze, snarf snarf."

"I don't believe this," Cheetara said, shaking her head. "This isn't the time to sit in judgment on his habits. He could be in danger. What if it's not love, not sex, but some kind of power or corruptive hold that this Celeste has put on him?"

That time Lion-O sighed. "I'm not trying to be judgmental, Cheetara, I'm just trying to see all the facts. One is that Tygra can take care of himself, and as a fellow Thundercat and our friend, we should respect his judgment and his need for space if we have no real reason to think anything's amiss. A second is that we don't have anything other than a note that, while odd, isn't a sign that he's anything other than a little upset with us and wanting some time elsewhere for a while." He glanced down at the claw shield on his hip holding the quiet Sword of Omens and resting Eye of Thundera. "The Eye hasn't warned me of any danger. Has your sixth sense?" he asked the cheetah.

"No," she admitted. "Nothing more than just a gut feeling that something's off."

"And that might be nothing more than a holdover from wanting to smooth it over with him, right?" Panthro offered, looking to Cheetara with a sympathetic look. "I felt like a heel for needling him to that point too, and I'd like to have a word with him about it. But until he comes back…"

"On the other hand," Lion-O went on, "Tygra does sometimes get a little caught up in things, and if this Celeste is using that for less than honorable purposes, we should be concerned as his friends." He stared at the Thundercat insignia on the council table, deep in thought. "But if it is something sinister she's offering and he's taking, he'll have to see it for what it is on his own before its lure will be broken. If he doesn't want to, we're going to have a hard time convincing him otherwise."

Snarf looked up at Lion-O with concern in his eyes. "Do you really think it could be something, snarf, dangerous?"

"I don't know," Lion-O admitted. "I don't really think so. I mean, if she was evil and was out to harm the Thundercats, why would she have given Tygra that elixir to cure Cheetara in the first place? And why wouldn't the Sword of Omens warn us?"

Panthro nodded. "Both good points. Maybe we should just let him be for now."

The frown on Cheetara's face etched its way deeper, but she did not press the issue further. "If you say so. I just hope we're not making a big mistake."

* * *

Luna and Amok walked into Skytomb's control room at a late hour, and the room was empty except for Alluro, who was busy tinkering with something on the console. He looked up briefly when he heard them come in, but resumed what he was doing without a word a moment later.

The Lunatac leader glanced at the view screen, which showed the quiet outline of the surrounding DarkSide landscape. "Did Chilla return yet?" she asked the psi.

"No," he answered flatly.

Luna frowned. "She's been gone a while, hasn't she?" One who did not know Luna well enough to know better might have thought her tone held a note of concern, although she certainly would have denied it regardless.

TugMug and RedEye came in a moment later, overhearing her remark as they entered. "I'm sure Chilla can take care of herself," the graviton pointed out, while RedEye let out a knowing chortle.

"Or perhaps her Damien can do it."

The screwdriver in Alluro's hands dug sharply into a crevice where he was using it as a lever rather than its intended purpose, and the metal groaned under the additional force he applied to it when he heard TugMug's amused response to the darkling's quip. "That doesn't leave Damien as being too safe, stuck alone with her!"

While TugMug, RedEye, and even Amok chortled at that, Alluro turned around and regarded them without any humor for it. "It's not that funny. What do we know about this Damien or what he is anyway? Chilla said he looks human, but that he isn't. If not, then what is he? A mage? We've dealt with _them_ before, and I don't think any of us can say we're thrilled to have met Mumm-Ra."

"You thought it was funny enough before," Luna said, raising an eyebrow at the psi. "And as long as Damien is useful to us, I don't care what he is. So long as he doesn't get in our way, what does it matter?"

RedEye peered at Alluro with amusement. "If you ask me, I think someone's jealous of Chilla's new friend."

Alluro's screwdriver met the console with a loud clatter as he turned to glare at RedEye. "Don't be ridiculous." He turned back to Luna. "Aren't you at least a little suspicious of how conveniently he turned up? We've never seen nor heard of him and his great magical powers," he said, his tone mocking as he enunciated the last three words, "before today, and at the same time Chilla was with him, Jackalman disappeared." He frowned. "By the way, Slythe bored me with yet another message whining that he hasn't turned up yet. He thinks we did something to the mangy canine, and no matter what I tell that reptilian fool, he doesn't believe we're innocent."

TugMug let out a hearty laugh. "Us? Innocent?"

"All right, 'not guilty' then," Alluro amended. "But we all know that we had nothing to do with that idiot's disappearance, and I doubt Chilla bothered with him either, which means someone or something else did."

Nodding, Luna said, "Yes, but if Chilla was with Damien, that'd clear him too, unless they did it together. And why would they do that? Because he ruined the ambiance of their little wine party?" she scoffed incredulously.

"Nice attempt at an excuse to hate his guts though," RedEye said, grinning snidely at Alluro.

Alluro's response was to mutter something uncomplimentary about RedEye and his alleged parentage of a darkling whore and an inbred Mutant under his breath, and returned his attention to the console.

Luna meanwhile tapped her riding crop thoughtfully. "Well, Alluro may have a point. If Chilla doesn't come back soon, it wouldn't be a bad idea to look around and see where she ran off to."

"Don't you get all paranoid now," TugMug said, bouncing over to one of the other consoles. "A stupid Mutant disappearing is one thing. They could fall into a Berbil trap and be stuck until another one of them shows up to get them out. But Chilla? I mean, who out there is meaner than a Lunatac like her, other than maybe that annoying bag of bones? And you know she didn't go pay him a social visit."

"Hah, well there is that," Luna conceded. "Chilla can take care of herself."

With that the subject was dropped, and the Lunatacs disbursed and resumed doing what they had been previously. Not surprisingly, nothing was heard from either Chilla or Jackalman for the rest of the night.

* * *

Shortly before dawn, Mirlana cracked open the door to Celeste's suite. She saw Celeste fast asleep on the bed, almost aglow from the psychic energy she had taken from her lusty night of play with the tiger the night before. Tygra was beside her, deep asleep, his body desperately trying to rebuild the stores of energy his succubus-like lover had stolen from him. He was not aware of the sinister truth behind Celeste's desire for him, to him it was just that the act had been intensely pleasurable—like the effects of the wine multiplied—and so thorough that it left him very tired.

Mirlana closed the door gently and slipped back into the hallway. _Good, Celeste is asleep too, _she thought. _Maybe I can get help for them now without the masters finding out_. Before peeking in on Celeste, she had come from spying into Damien's quarters. Like his sister, he too had been fast asleep at the side of his new toy, and like Tygra, Chilla was also in a deep slumber, unaware of what her new lover was doing to her.

In Mirlana's hands were the shoulder straps that belonged to the jackal imprisoned in the bowels of the estate. He had given them to her as a means to alert the other Mutants to what was going on. Even though she could not leave the village herself, she had an idea of how she might get the personal effect to someone that might recognize it. In her days as a Warrior Maiden she had been a scout and had learned ways to communicate with wildlife, especially birds. Those skills were rusty, but not forgotten, and she was confident that she could summon a forest creature to take the evidence of the jackal's capture to Castle Plundarr, and it could then show his friends where he could be found and rescued, along with the others. Mirlana did not realize that the Mutants were considered evil or that Jackalman and Tygra hailed from factions enemy to one another, and while she knew them to be of differing races, it did not occur to her question whether they would help one another. When faced with evil such as Damien and Celeste's, after all, who would not want to help save someone else caught in it?

She approached the edge of the village path leading into the forest, already able to feel her strength beginning to fade. She could not go much farther, that was for certain, so she chose to try where she was. She climbed up into some branches and let out a loud whistle that would call to the birds. None came right away, and she wondered if perhaps she had forgotten what she needed to do after all, if it _had_ been too long. She tried again, and after several disappointing moments of silence, her spirits elated as a large bird swooped down from the tree canopy above and landed at her feet.

"Please, my friend, I need a favor from you," she implored the bird, which looked up at her quizzically, but unafraid. She held out the shoulder straps. "Take this to Castle Plundarr, and show them the way here so they can help their friends. Please. It's very important." The bird remained where it landed for a moment, and Mirlana added a second entreaty of "please!" which led the bird to take the straps up into its beak. It stared at her for a long moment, and then took off into the sky above.

Mirlana breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps there was a chance for Celeste and Damien's victims after all.

* * *

Cheetara walked into the dining room of Cat's Lair and sat down, her mood still sour from the night before. The only other Thundercats up were WilyKit and WilyKat, who were already seated and eating their breakfast. Without saying anything, she poured herself some juice and helped herself to three of Snarf's Berbil berry pancakes.

"Good morning Cheetara," both of the kittens greeted her.

She gave them a wan smile. "Good morning."

WilyKit picked up on the cheetah's mood almost immediately. "What's wrong? Didn't you sleep well?"

"I've slept better," she admitted. "I'm worried about Tygra. He didn't come back last night, did he?"

"I don't think so." WilyKat shook his head. "Snarf told us what happened with him leaving and all. I hope he comes back soon."

"So do I," a sad WilyKit said. "Is he mad at us for teasing him do you think?"

"He said in his note that he wasn't," replied Cheetara, sounding a bit surer of her conviction than she actually felt. "I don't think he'd hold a grudge over that." She let out a weary breath and looked to the kittens in confidence. "To be honest, I think that this woman Celeste has some kind of hold on him. It's like he's infatuated with her. That's not like Tygra."

"Maybe we should find him and talk to him," WilyKit suggested.

Cheetara picked at her pancakes. "Well, Lion-O's orders were that we let him be for now. I don't really like it either, but he's probably right. Tygra probably just needs space to sort through his feelings. He isn't very in touch with them sometimes."

WilyKat's eyes sparkled as he was struck with inspiration. "Lion-O didn't tell _us_ not to find Tygra."

The cheetah's brow rose. "I'm not sure that's the best idea either, WilyKat."

"Aw, think about it, Cheetara," WilyKit said, a mischievous look on her face to match her brother's. "I mean if we just happen to be on our spaceboards in the unicorn forest and find him, no one could blame us if we offered an apology in person and asked him what was going on, right?"

Their blatant bending of the rule without breaking it was enough to cause Cheetara to laugh despite herself. "You two..."

Knowing with her laughter that they had won the elder Thundercat over, WilyKat grinned. "Hey we're not called 'wily' just because it sounds cool!"

"All right," Cheetara conceded with a smile, and then waved her hand at them conspiratorially. "Just remember, this conversation never happened. Lion-O, Panthro, and Snarf would _not _be happy to hear I let you go out after Tygra."

"What conversation?" WilyKit replied coyly.

"Yeah, you just told us it was okay to go out for a spaceboard ride!" WilyKat declared jovially, and shoveled the last bites of his breakfast into his mouth. "C'mon Kit, let's go!"

"Right behind you!" She stuffed the toast in her hand into her mouth with a graceless chomp, and bounded out of the room side by side with her brother.

* * *

Alluro was rudely awakened by the sensation of a leathery whack on the back of his neck, courtesy of Luna's riding crop. Grunting and rubbing his neck as he sat up, he shot a nasty glare at the lunar woman looming over him from atop Amok. He had apparently fallen asleep at the console in Skytomb's control room late in the night hours and his back and neck now ached for it. "Wake up!" Luna snapped at him impatiently, her voice even more shrill and irksome in that just-waking-up state.

"What time is it?" grumbled Alluro.

"A few hours into the day," Luna replied tersely as she pointed her crop at him with disapproval. "Didn't you go to bed last night?"

"No, I was working on this. I guess I fell asleep." He stretched, and then yawned. "I think I'll go to bed now though," he said, and started for the doorway, until Luna swatted at him with the crop again to stop him.

"No you're not!" she said in a tone that would accept no argument. "We're going on a Thundrillium excavation today. The Thundercats didn't get everything at that site, and we have to get a move on and get whatever's left before they decide to come back. With Chilla gone, I need all the rest of you to go and get it while I hold down the fort."

Alluro frowned. He was not in the mood for one of Luna's schemes, especially not on so little sleep. "What makes you sure that they haven't already gone for it, Luna?"

Luna shook her head. "No, the area is clear. It looks like they've got other things on their mind today. That's why we should move now."

"Or perhaps it's just that Thundercats don't get up this early either," the psi grumbled, and then gave Luna an aggravated look. "Besides, I'm exhausted. In case you've forgotten, I was in a coma yesterday, and was up to all hours of the night working."

"Being in a coma you got more sleep than the rest of us, so that's no excuse to be lazy! You can rest when we have that Thundrillium!" the equally unimpressed Luna screeched back at him. "Be ready in five minutes, or else!"

There was no need to spell out what the "or else" meant with the growl Amok gave in tandem with Luna's order, so Alluro just muttered a Lunar-Plundarrian curse at her under his breath and left to find something caffeinated to drink before they left. Ten minutes later he, RedEye, and TugMug were on their way to the excavation site in the Lunattacker. None of them noticed the large bird with shoulder straps in its beak that flew past them, heading directly for Castle Plundarr.


	4. Chapter 4

Tygra awoke as the bright sun filtered onto the spacious bed he had slept upon. He rolled over and reached for Celeste, but to his dismay she was not there and he was alone in the room. _She must've gotten up already_, Tygra mused. He stretched and climbed out of bed, wondering why he felt so tired for having slept so long and so deeply. He still felt wonderfully relaxed and peaceful though, and figured that his fatigue was just his body being slow to wake and he would shake it off eventually. "Maybe I just need some breakfast," he said to himself. "Celeste said I could just call one of the servants if I needed anything." He tugged on a rope that rang a bell in the servants' quarters.

While he waited for a response he wandered over to the room's closet, curious to see if it had anything clean to wear that would fit him. Curiously enough, his clothes were gone, along with his whip. _Oh well, I suppose I don't really need any weapons here anyway_, he thought indifferently, and made a mental note to ask Celeste about it later. After shuffling past a few garments, he saw a toga-like garment similar to the one he had seen other men in the village wearing, one that was a stunning shade of emerald green. Deciding that would do, he put that on instead, and slipped his feet into a pair of leather sandals that were on the closet floor. They fit perfectly, as if they had been made for him. He admired his reflection in the mirror on the door. Aside from the fact that he was a tiger Thunderian, he looked just like he belonged there.

He heard a light rapping at the door. "Come in," he called.

Mirlana entered. "You called, Sir Tygra?"

He smiled as he greeted her. "I was just wondering where I should go to get breakfast. Celeste left before I woke up."

"Lady Celeste is already out on the patio," the servant told him. "She woke up an hour or so ago and asked that you not be disturbed until you awoke. Breakfast is being served out there. Follow me."

* * *

Meanwhile out on the patio, Celeste and Chilla were sitting out in the morning sunlight. Chilla and Damien had awakened about fifteen minutes earlier, and Damien had excused himself briefly, telling Chilla only that he had a "surprise" for her. Celeste had stopped by Chilla's room and picked out an outfit for the Lunatac to wear, as her clothes had mysteriously vanished overnight too, although Celeste assured their guest that they were simply being cleaned for her. Chilla herself was clad in a brilliant red toga-gown similar in style to Celeste's, only it was a bit shorter and tighter. The icewalker too wore sandals, and her white hair hung loose about her shoulders and neck, making a striking contrast with the bold red of her ensemble. Once she was dressed, Celeste had then taken Chilla down to the patio for breakfast. Like Tygra, Chilla was feeling very relaxed but at the same time very lethargic, as though her energy had been sapped from her.

If it troubled her though, Chilla did not let it show. Instead she reclined in a lounge sipping at a glass of red juice. Its taste was exotic and sweet, not unlike the wine. "I wish Luna would stock this stuff in our stores," she remarked.

"Well you have all these luxuries at your disposal here," Celeste said with a charming smile. "If you don't want to, you need never return to your ungrateful companions. Damien told me how poorly they treated you. From what he said, you're better off without them. You know you're welcome to stay on with us as long as you like."

"I plan on it," Chilla answered. "I can use a vacation, especially from those jerks."

Celeste's smile widened. "Damien is much more suited to you than any of those uncouth men back at your home anyway, at least as far as I can see."

"As if I'd be interested in any of them anyway," Chilla retorted, and took another drink of the juice. "Damien is nothing like any of them."

Their conversation was cut short when Mirlana and Tygra came out. "Good morning Celeste," Tygra beamed, hurrying to join his lover's side. It was then that he noticed Chilla's presence, and her different attire. If he had not known for certain that it was her, he would have been positive she had a double. This Chilla looked cheerful, relaxed, happy, and friendly—the antithesis of the Chilla he knew. He regarded her coolly. "Chilla, I assume our truce still stands?"

"Yeah, sure," she answered, her dislike for him still evident but without being overtly antagonistic. She then noticed his toga. "What, no more jumpsuit for you?"

"No more tight white dresses and capes?" the tiger countered.

"Just tight red togas," she replied with a superior smile, a frosty mist escaping her lips as she spoke.

Celeste seemed pleased with their lack of animosity toward one another, although neither Tygra nor Chilla knew that it was her and Damien's magic dulling their senses that was at the root of it. It was not out of any peaceful intent, however, rather because it was that much harder to keep them under their spell if they had reminders of the outside world, such as their peoples' grudges with one another, undermining their efforts. "Wonderful," Celeste said, beaming at the two of them. "I'm so glad to see that you've put aside your differences here. I knew this place would be good for you both." She turned to Tygra and gestured to the empty seat next to her. "Have a seat Tygra, darling, and have some breakfast. You must be starving."

Tygra nodded and sat beside her, helping himself to the array of tarts, fruits, and rolls offered to him.

Damien joined them on the patio a few moments later. He gave a warm greeting to everyone, and then sat next to Chilla placing his arm around her. "My surprise for you is ready."

"What is it?" Chilla asked, her eyes lighting up with interest.

"Have you ever gone riding?"

"Riding? Like horses you mean?"

"Not horses—unicorns. We do live in the unicorn forest," Damien replied with a mischievous smile.

Chilla's face lapsed back into a frown. "Oh, like I could get within a hundred feet of the herd without those guardians whisking them off with their magic. They don't like Lunatacs. They're Thundercat allies."

Damien waved his hand in protest. "You forget, my dear, you're no longer with your old friends, and such petty group distinctions have no meaning to us. We know only two distinctions—our group and the outsiders. You are now one of our group," he said, and planted a soft kiss on her hand. "Besides, not all the unicorns are in the care of the guardians. Only the white unicorns. We have our own herd, a herd of black unicorns. They're the ones we ride. So please, come with me for a ride in the forest."

Chilla sat up and placed her cup back on the table. "Okay. Let's go."

Damien turned to Celeste and Tygra. "Of course, you two are welcome to join us."

"I think Tygra is a little tired to ride, aren't you?" She turned and stared intently into his feline eyes, willing him to agree with her.

"Yes Celeste," he replied automatically, and sank deeper into the chair.

From where she watched in the archway, Mirlana felt herself cringe in disgust. _What a waste,_ she thought resentfully. _A powerful warrior like him reduced to nodding and smiling and doing whatever Celeste says, like he has no mind of his own. Why can't he see how she's controlling him, what she's doing to him?_ She slunk deeper into the shadows as Damien and Chilla walked out, only peering out again when the two of them were well past the point where they might be able to see her. Another glance at Tygra and Celeste only confirmed just how deeply under her masters' spell the tiger and the Lunatac were. "I hope that bird gets to Castle Plundarr, and soon," she whispered.

* * *

An incessant pecking droned on the window of Vultureman's chamber in Castle Plundarr. The snoozing vulture tried to ignore it, but it would not go away. "Why me?" he cawed irritably. "I'm a fellow bird, you know!" He rummaged around on the floor next to his bed until he found a small metal chunk—part of a gadget he had been trying to build that did not turn out—and threw it at the window. Unfortunately he threw it too hard, and the glass pane shattered. His beak twisted into an expression of disgust, and he thought about getting up to survey the damage, but decided it could wait. "At least I got rid of that annoying pecking," he said with a grunt, and rolled over. The avian had just started to drift back into sleep when the bird that had been pecking flew in through the broken window, landed on the stand beside his bed, and squawked loudly.

From down the hallway came a very grouchy reptilian shout. "Keep it down, ssssome of us are trying to ssssleep, yessss?"

Now completely awake, the incensed vulture sat up and shook his fist. "Then get this damned bird out of my room," he hollered back. Vultureman then threw a pillow at the bird, but it missed its target and fell with a soft thud onto the floor. Startled, the bird took flight once more and hovered above him for a moment before dropping Jackalman's shoulder straps beside him on the bed.

Vultureman realized with a resigned sigh that he was not going to get back to sleep, and picked up whatever it was that the bird had dropped. He did a double-take when he saw what it was. "Jackalman?" he said with an incredulous squawk. "These are his!"

The visiting bird cawed at him as if to confirm his statement, and then perched on the window, seemingly willing Vultureman to follow him. The Mutant glanced curiously at the lesser bird and drew the odd conclusion that it must know what had happened to Jackalman if it had brought something of his there. He was not sure how he knew that, as it defied common—or in the case of his castle mates at times, not so common—sense, but somehow he knew his hunch was right. Clutching the straps in his hand, he ran down the hallway calling out to the other Mutants. "Slythe! Monkian! Get up now!"

Slythe opened his door wielding a scowl and a very large spiked club. "I ssssaid keep it down, bird-brain!"

"Hoo hoo, I'll turn you into a feather duster if you don't shut up!" an equally annoyed Monkian threatened as he poked his head out of his quarters further down the hall.

"Look!" the exasperated Vultureman exclaimed, holding out the straps that the bird had delivered to him. "Some bird just broke into my room and dropped these on my bed!"

The leader of the Mutants let out a low growl and tapped his scaled fingers against the handle of his club impatiently. "You awakened us at this hour for that? You had better explain yourself, Vultureman!"

Too fired up to argue with the reptilian, Vultureman approached and thrust the straps toward his face. "Caw! Don't you recognize these? They're Jackalman's! The bird in my room knows where he is." He looked from Slythe, still regarding him dubiously, to the simian across the way, who did not seem impressed by the story either. "Obviously," the vulture continued, "our suspicions about the Lunatacs were right. We have to find out what those double-crossing moon dwellers did to him last night."

Not impressed by Vultureman's sudden development of bird-to-bird ESP, Slythe glared back at him. "The bird knows where Jackalman is?" he repeated incredulously, and then sneered at the vulture. "Did he tell you that, yesss?"

Vultureman sighed. "I know it sounds crazy—"

Monkian stepped out into the hallway. "It sounds more than crazy, Vultureman. It sounds like you inhaled one too many glue fumes in your lab, hoo hoo."

"Caw, you have to trust me! Call it a bird thing, but I understand what creature was trying to tell me."

Slythe paused for a moment, giving the matter some thought. While he did have severe doubts as to Vultureman's sanity, he also wanted to know what had happened to the missing jackal, and the straps in Vultureman's hands were indeed those of his fellow Mutant. He supposed it would be prudent to at least investigate the matter, and he supposed if it turned out to be a wild game chase, he could always take it out on the buzzard later. "All right, but you had better be right about this bird, Vultureman," Slythe warned as he closed the door to his quarters behind him and joined the other two in the hallway. "Otherwise you're going to be the one who's missing—because we'll vaporize you with your own vari-cannon for coming up with such an asinine idea!"

Monkian frowned. "Hoo, you mean you think this is for real, Slythe? I want to go back to bed."

Vultureman narrowed his eyes impatiently at the simian. "Quit whining, you pathetic primate. Just be glad I didn't leave you in your, caw, coma. I could have, you know. So you owe me the favor of humoring me. Now let's go, before that bird leaves!"

Slythe rolled his eyes. "Oh yesss, follow that bird-brain."

Grumbling, Monkian fell into step next to Slythe. "Hoo hoo, which one would that be—the bird or Vultureman?"

Grunting, Slythe replied, "Both."

* * *

Scanning the grounds around and beneath them as they sped along, WilyKit and WilyKat raced above the unicorn forest on their spaceboards. "Kit, slow down!" WilyKat called ahead to his sister. "You're going to get us killed going at that speed!"

WilyKit laughed. "What a wimp! Stop talking like Snarf! Of course, if you're chicken, I'll slow down..."

"I'm not chicken!" he protested. "But we should go below the tree line and see what we can find down there. Maybe we'll be able to see him or Celeste's village easier down low. It's lighter out now, so that should help."

"Oh all right," WilyKit agreed, and slowed down enough so that her brother could catch up. The two descended into the forest together, keeping their eyes open for any sign of the missing tiger or a settlement among the trees. They continued to glide along, maneuvering between the trees and vines, until WilyKit suddenly slowed way down and brought her board to a hover. "WilyKat! Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" WilyKat asked, careful to keep his balance at the sudden stop.

"Don't move, and listen really carefully!"

WilyKat hovered next to his sister and strained his ears. After several seconds, he thought he heard a galloping sound in the distance. "Oh, that's the unicorns," he said, relaxing once he figured out what the sound was. "The herd is probably running nearby."

WilyKit shook her head. "It can't be. We just passed the whole herd back on the banks of the River of Despair a little while ago, and we move a lot faster than they do on these things. Remember, we saw them when we waved at the two guardians?"

The male Thunderkitten shrugged. "Maybe they weren't all there."

"I don't think so," WilyKit replied. "Usually they don't travel that far from each other."

"Maybe it's some other kind of wild horses?"

"I've never seen any here in this part of Third Earth," WilyKit said thoughtfully. "The wild horses live out in the plains."

WilyKat paused for a moment and listened again. "It's getting louder, so whatever it is coming closer. Let's wait and find out what it is."

WilyKit nodded. "But it might be something dangerous so maybe we should get up in the trees and watch, in case it's something big."

"Good idea," he said, and the two Thunderkittens rode their spaceboards to a high and sturdy branch in one of the nearby trees. Once up there, they powered the boards down and set them in the crook of the branch and trunk of the tree. They then crept further out on the branch to wait for the source of the galloping sound to arrive. It had already grown louder, so they knew their wait would not be long.

It turned out to be not long at all. Soon they saw two figures in the distance that looked like horseback riders headed right toward them. The kittens stayed very still as the galloping figures slowed to a trot, and then a walk. The pair of young Thundercats were astonished to see that the creatures being ridden were two black unicorns, and their riders were a human-looking man in a toga and a woman with blue skin and white hair that was a dead ringer for Chilla. The kittens did not think it could really be Chilla, though, for she only hung around the other Lunatacs or Mutants or maybe Mumm-Ra, not unicorn-riding humans in the forest. And she certainly did not dress like that. The twins exchanged puzzled glances as the two riders came to a stop directly beneath them.

"I told you this was fun," the man said, dismounting the unicorn. "Our steeds should rest. We've been riding a while. They need a break." He walked over to help Chilla off her mount. "Allow me, dear Chilla."

WilyKat and WilyKit looked at one another with the same incredulous sentiment. That _was_ Chilla?

The ice Lunatac smiled and took the man's hand as she joined him on the ground. The two unicorns bent over to graze, while the unlikely couple of Chilla and the man stood close together and spoke softly to one another. The kittens leaned in closer, trying hard to make out their words. But they were in for a second shock when the man, unbeknownst to them as Damien, pulled Chilla into a tight embrace and kissed her passionately. To their complete surprise, the Lunatac did not seem to mind, in fact, she seemed quite happy with him.

"Who is he?" WilyKit whispered to her brother.

"I dunno," he whispered back. "But aren't his lips cold after that?"

Unaware of the spying pair above them, Chilla and Damien spoke to each other in low, hushed tones for a few minutes, shared another kiss, and then remounted their unicorns. As quickly as they had arrived, they galloped away into the trees of the forest again.

Once they were out of earshot, the kittens faced one another, equally shocked. "Can you believe it, Kit? That was Chilla! With a boyfriend!" WilyKat exclaimed in astonishment. "Do you know who he is?"

The female Thunderkitten shook her head. "Nope. This is too weird. What guy would want to be with Chilla like that?" She made a face. "I mean, even to the other Lunatacs, I don't think she's all that nice."

"I wouldn't be either, if all I had to pick from to go out with was TugMug, Alluro, and RedEye," WilyKat snickered.

"And why do you think she had that goofy outfit on?" WilyKit wondered. "Do you think the other Lunatacs know she's with this guy?"

WilyKat shrugged. "There's only one way to find out..."

"...follow them." WilyKit finished. The two Thunderkittens grabbed their spaceboards, restarted them, and sped after the Lunatac and her mysterious companion, staying just far enough behind to avoid being seen.

* * *

Lion-O drove the Thundertank along the countryside towards the Tower of Omens with Cheetara in the passenger seat next to him. "Thanks for keeping me company on my trip out here," he said to her.

"No problem, Lion-O," she replied with a brief smile. "It feels good to get out of the Lair anyway. I can't stop thinking about Tygra. I hope he's all right."

Lion-O looked at her with a concerned expression on his face. "Has your sixth sense shown you anything yet?"

"Nothing, and that worries me too. Hopefully it means no news is good news and he's fine, but…" She frowned again. "Do you think this Celeste woman could be doing something to him to make him forget us? It's just not like him to not come home at all, with no contact at all."

"I don't know," the lion answered in an equally somber tone. "I admit I'm not as confident as I was last night that everything is all right with him. But the Sword hasn't shown me anything either. Earlier I asked it to show me Tygra, and it just showed me his face," he confided in her.

"And his expression?" Cheetara questioned.

Lion-O met her eyes with an uncertainty that matched hers. "Happy."

The cheetah frowned. "I still think we should've heard from him by now."

Their conversation was cut short when the Thundertank's console beeped in alarm. "Oh great," groaned Lion-O.

"What is it?"

"The scanner's picked up the Lunatacs' signal in the area, coming from a large vehicle… my guess would be the Lunattacker. It's heading for the mountains—the ruins we were in yesterday. I think they're going after the Thundrillium we haven't mined yet because of the accident."

Cheetara frowned at the console. "Well, we'd better stop them. The last thing we need is for the Lunatacs to get more fuel to use in their weapons against us, especially when we could use some more in our stores ourselves."

"I agree. Let's go." Lion-O turned the Thundertank sharply and hurried toward the ruins.

* * *

"Now that's odd," said Lynx-O, his ears twitching as he keyed a sequence into the Braille board in the Tower of Omens.

Bengali walked over to his side. "What's wrong?"

"This signal." He brought up a visual on the screen for the others to see. "Several of the Mutants have left Castle Plundarr in fast pursuit of what appears to be a bird."

Pumyra blinked, not sure she heard the elder Thundercat correctly. "A bird?"

Lynx-O nodded affirmatively.

"Are you sure that it's not Vultureman?" Bengali asked.

"No, it's not Vultureman. Look closely," he said, and typed in the command to zoom in on the Flying Machine. "The Braille Board's signals tell me that Vultureman is one of the ones in pursuit, along with Slythe and Monkian. It would seem that only Jackalman is missing this mission of theirs."

"Yeah, that's definitely Vultureman," Pumyra agreed.

Snarfer bounced up on his tail alongside Lynx-O. "Why do you think they'd be following a bird, snarfer, snarfer?"

"Tell me, what is the bird holding in its beak? I can tell it has something, but I can't make out what from the signal. Do you recognize it?"

Bengali peered closer. "It's still a bit far away, but it looks like a belt, or a bandolier or strap of some sort."

Pumyra studied the screen, frowning. "Are you sure the Tower and Braille Board aren't getting distorted signals? This is pretty strange."

"Oh no, it's working fine," Lynx-O assured her. "Panthro calibrated the entire system three days ago, and everything checked out fine."

"I hope the Mutants aren't up to something too troublesome," Bengali said, shaking his head.

"Snarfer, when are they not?" the small snarf said. "I don't think this can be any good, whatever it means, nope, no sirree!"

Lynx-O nodded. "I think we should investigate it. Snarfer, would you stay here and monitor the Tower while Pumyra, Bengali, I go and find out just what it is that those Mutants are up to?"

"Of course. Yep, sure can." Snarfer bounced up onto the control panel as the lynx stepped back to allow him full access to the console. The other Thundercats gathered up their weapons and headed to the door.

"Rrrowl, let us know if anything happens," Bengali said as they left the room.

"No problem!" Snarfer called out after them. A few minutes later, the Thunderstrike took off in hot pursuit of the Mutants' suspicious convoy.

* * *

Back in the Unicorn Forest, WilyKat and WilyKit stealthily pursued the two unicorns and their riders through the twists and turns of the heavily wooded glade. Eventually Damien and Chilla turned down a dirt path lined with wildflowers. The Thunderkittens paused behind the foliage of a large tree, waiting to make sure that they were far enough behind to avoid being seen by Chilla and her mysterious companion before they followed them.

"Do you think this path goes to the village where Tygra got that elixir from Celeste?" WilyKat wondered aloud in a tone low enough that only his sister could hear.

"I'd bet a bushel of candy fruit on it," WilyKit whispered back. "Let's check it out!"

Silently lowering themselves to the ground, the Thunderkittens dismounted their spaceboards once more and stashed them in a nearby bush where they would not be seen unless one was looking for them. Once they were certain that Damien and Celeste were far enough ahead that they would not notice that they were being followed, the young Thundercat pair darted down the path. Not far down the walk, they saw before them the secret hamlet that had impressed Tygra so much the night before.

"Wow," WilyKat breathed as he took in the scene of the idyllic settlement nestled among the trees. Several buildings of ornate architectural design and elaborate decoration were positioned along a perfectly even street of cobblestones, which were unmarred by even the smallest stain of dirt. A large flowing fountain stood in the village square, spraying a brilliant shower of water that sparkled luminously in the dim light of the forest. Flowers, ornamental shrubs, and trees decorated every yard, and there was not a blade of grass or a clump of dirt visibly out of place anywhere. "I never would've expected a place like this to be here."

He then spotted the mystery man leading Chilla into a large building, the most opulent and beautiful of them all. It seemed to be made of marble, shining and white over the entire village, as if presiding over it. WilyKat pointed his sister toward it and she nodded knowingly. That was where they had to go. Not just to see where Chilla had gone—although they were curious—but more importantly, because that was where they suspected Tygra might be, and where his mysterious healer Celeste would be. As quickly and as quietly as they could, the twins began to make their way through the village in secret, hiding behind bushes and walls, darting to and fro to avoid any sort of detection. Once they approached the home of Damien and Celeste, they spied a side archway, completely unguarded, and ducked inside.

* * *

Across the palace from where the Thunderkittens were sneaking in, Celeste and Damien's servant Mirlana stood in front of a more ominous scene, two heavy oaken doors in a corner of the palace that was rarely traveled. She knew it only as The Vault. She had never been inside. No one but Damien and Celeste were permitted to go in there, on pain of invoking their wrath, and none of the servants dared to risk that to satisfy their curiosity. Still, all of the slaves knew what was in there, or they at least suspected. _Here it is,_ Mirlana thought nervously_. Celeste and Damien's collection room. All the mementoes, all the things that linked all of us, all their victims, to the outside world. The one place in the palace we're forbidden to go._ The former warrior maiden reached for the door. _I have to know. I need to know what they keep in here. Maybe I can to use it to make them remember._

Mirlana stepped forward, gathering her nerve. She was about to lift the latch when a pang of fear made her pause. _If they catch you, they'll exile you. It'll mean the end of you. You saw what happened to the others._ She closed her eyes as the memory of the last exile came to her. It was many years ago now, but she would never forget it. A Nai woman, another of Damien's past victims, who snapped after several years of slavery. In a rage she had struck at her former lover and current master to demand her strength and freedom back. Damien had not been amused when her nails drew blood from his arm, and he had sentenced her to exile. He carried her through the street and threw her with incredible force into the forest, and then drew a barrier around the magical village so she could not re-enter. The servants had gathered around, some wearing knowing expressions of sadness, while others watched on in horrified curiosity to see what would happen. Mirlana was in the latter group. The Nai woman shrieked as if bathed in fire, and fell to her knees, shaking uncontrollably. Her skin tore and stretched, aging and wrinkling at an impossible rate, while her hair grew sparse and dull in color before falling out. She cried as her body rotted around her, forcing her to feel the death and decay she would have been in had her mortality not been taken from her and replaced by so many years of their hosts' dark magic. The doomed Nai let out one final cry of utter despair as she fell in a lifeless heap. There was a clatter of ash as her body hit the ground, leaving only the bones that would have been her mortal self behind. A sad cry on the wind was the only evidence that her soul had been released, but to what fate, Mirlana could only guess.

As she recalled these events, Mirlana drew her hand back for a moment. Did she really want to go through with it? Were the strangers worth risking what was left of her life over? _But if you don't go in and try to do something, you'll have to live with knowing you stood by and did nothing to help someone yet again… and would leaving this life be so bad, if this is all you have for the remainder of eternity? _ The sad realization reaffirmed her determination. With a steadying breath she pulled the heavy doors open.

A musty odor greeted her as she crept in, and she quickly closed the door behind her to avoid being caught. The forbidden room was immense and dark as night. Fortunately, Mirlana carried a lantern with her, which she turned up so that she could see. Situated right at the front of the room were two piles of items she immediately recognized. One was a light silvery-blue jumpsuit, neatly folded, with a fully retracted bolo whip sitting atop it. The other was a folded cape in various shades of blue and white, a white dress, shoulder straps with a crescent moon in the middle of them, two white boots, and a pair of white gloves.

_So this _is _where Damien and Celeste keep the belongings of their victims, _Mirlana mused, her suspicions confirmed. She quickly cast a glance around the room to see what else she might recognize, and gasped. The room was full of similar piles, far more than ever expected to see, many times more than the number of souls like her trapped within the village. _By the gods, how many have they taken during their existence?_ She fought back a wave of nausea as she contemplated how many had fallen prey to her masters' scheme. _And how many have they banished and executed once they no longer had a use for them, once they were no longer useful or obedient?_ The servant girl slowly made her way towards the back of the room, searching for anything that might be of use to her. One particular pile she stumbled across made her stop dead in her tracks. She set the lantern down and knelt beside it.

It consisted of an animal-skin halter top and loincloth, a shoulder strap with a quiver, still holding five arrows within in it. On the very top sat a long forgotten bow. Tears sprang to her eyes as she touched the items for the first time in many, many years. _These were mine… all these years and they had them, hidden away… _The memories of her past life living among the warrior women came back to her in a rush, so strongly that she wondered how they could have become so distant. She caressed the bow in her hands, contemplating how she had gotten herself into the sorry state she was in now. _I used to be strong. I used to be brave. Look at me now, cowering in the darkness, terrified to make one wrong move or speak my mind. What have they done to me? How could I let all this happen?_

Her emotions then gave way to a cold, steely, and vengeful resolve. She stood and wiped the tears from her eyes as she reclaimed her things. _Well no more, Damien and Celeste. You're finally going to get what's coming to you. I'll see to that._

Mirlana changed her clothes, shedding the toga she had worn for so long, and robed herself in the skins of her past life. She was pleased to see how they still fit as if she had never stopped wearing them. Smiling darkly, she slung the arrow quiver over her back, picked up her lantern, and walked to the door. On the way out she stopped to pick up Tygra's whip as well. She then slammed the vault door behind her and ran to her quarters, a fierce determination burning inside her.

* * *

Tygra yawned and stretched as he lay on a lounge chair while the afternoon sunlight comfortably baked him. "It's been too long since I've had a chance to rest and relax like this," he said contentedly.

Celeste and Chilla joined him on the patio. "There you are Tygra, darling. I just found Chilla on her way back from the ride and asked her to join us. I do hope you don't mind. Damien is busy getting the unicorns back to their pens, but he'll be by shortly. How has your afternoon been so far?"

"I don't mind," Tygra said, not even realizing how odd it was to say that he did not mind Chilla's company. "And my afternoon's been great. I can't remember how long it's been since I've felt so at ease."

"Yeah, this place has that effect," Chilla agreed absentmindedly. "Someone should send Luna here to calm her down."

Celeste's smile faded ever so slightly as Chilla spoke of the outside world. _Damien isn't doing as well as he should in making her forget the outsiders. I'd better get her some more of that wine of forgetfulness,_ the dark mistress thought. She met the ice woman's eyes. "I doubt your friend could appreciate our home the way you can." Her smile returned as she motioned to a nearby slave. "Oh, I had the servants whip up something you might like, given your unique build—a frozen dessert made from a combination of the wine and the fruit. Something to keep you nice and cool in this warm sun." The slave nodded and quickly retrieved a dish of the dessert, and placed it in front of Chilla as she took her seat.

"Interesting," Chilla said as she tasted it. "I've never had anything like this. It's so sweet!"

"It's an ancient recipe that our ancestors discovered in a First Earth ruin. They called it sorbet."

"I like it," Chilla stated, and scooped up her dish of sorbet. She nodded and walked to the other side of the patio, looking out at the view beyond to see if Damien was arriving yet.

Meanwhile, Celeste sat next to Tygra who smiled and put his arm around her as she joined him on the lounge.

"I missed you while you were out," he whispered, eyeing her longingly.

The sorceress smiled at him and leaned against his soft striped fur. "Don't concern yourself with that, my love. You'll soon realize that I'm never gone long." She met his eyes and Tygra kissed her deeply, drawn in by her magnetic presence. The wicked Celeste used the opportunity to take a bit more of his vitality from him, savoring it like a tasty morsel. Like he had not in their lovemaking the night before, Tygra did not notice it in the kiss. All Tygra felt was completely enraptured and lost, but so contentedly that he did not even think to question it.

Just then WilyKat and WilyKit, who had spent the last twenty minutes or so sneaking their way around the palace, found the patio. They crept out and hid behind a large topiary. "Kat, look," WilyKit whispered urgently. "It's Tygra! He is here!"

"Yeah, and look at the pretty lady he's with," WilyKat murmured. "If that's Celeste, I see why he left to visit her!"

WilyKit was not as impressed, and cast the couple a suspicious glance. "I don't know. Something doesn't seem right with them. Did you notice how out of it he seems? I think Cheetara was right; something strange is going on with her."

"I don't think so," WilyKat disagreed. "It's love. It makes guys act funny."

"And how would you know?" she whispered back. "Like you've ever had a date! Besides, look at how weird Chilla's acting too. You don't think she'd normally not be trying to fight with Tygra? No, I think Celeste and Chilla's boyfriend are doing something to them to make them act this way."

WilyKat bit his lip thoughtfully, and then regarded Chilla for a moment. "Well in Chilla's case, it's an improvement. Maybe they should keep her like this. She's a lot nicer this way."

"I'm serious, WilyKat. I think we should go back to the Lair and tell Lion-O what's going on. I bet he'd want to know about this."

WilyKat nodded. "I am being serious. But yeah, I guess you're right. Let's go."

Having decided that they had seen enough, the Thunderkittens backed away from the bush and darted back into the hallway from which they had come. Unfortunately in their haste they were not careful enough to check that it was empty, and their error brought them face to face with Damien.

"Well well, what have we here?" Damien inquired with a vicious smile.

Unnerved by the man and the way he loomed over them, WilyKat replied nervously, "We're friends of Tygra's. We were really worried about him."

Damien narrowed his eyes. "Really? _Friends _don't sneak around and spy on the private lives of other friends. No, I think you're here to cause trouble."

WilyKat shook his head and fought back a feeling of dread. "No, you don't understand. We're from Cat's Lair, where Tygra's from, and—"

Before they could react, the evil master of the palace snarled and grabbed each Thunderkitten by the collar of their clothes, and pulled them up to eye level. "I know who you are, Thunderbrats," he hissed in a dangerous and inhuman tone. His blue eyes were alight with malice and his fingers grew long and clawed while the sneer on his face widened until it had a distinctly unnatural and demon-like form. "I'm not about to let you run home and tell your little Thunderkitty friends about what you've seen here, and risk losing what Celeste and I worked so hard to obtain. No, Tygra and Chilla are ours, and the rest of your inferior kind had better accept that!"

"Let go!" WilyKit cried as she struggled in his grip, kicking out. One kick landed on his shin and caught him off guard, stunning him temporarily, allowing them to squirm out of his grasp.

He roared furiously. "Now you're really going to pay. Nobody trifles with me and lives to boast about it!"

The kittens backed up in a defensive stance. "Who do you think you are that you can just take Tygra from us and then attack us when we want to talk to him?" WilyKat yelled.

"I'll tell you who I think I am," Damien growled. "I am Lord Damien, far older and wiser than any of your kind, master of these lands and woods, and I will take whatever and whoever I want." He rose to his full height in supernatural form, becoming more forbidding and terrible in appearance with each passing second. The kittens gasped in fear as his features twisted away from being human entirely into something only a little less hideous than Mumm-Ra himself.

"WilyKat, we need to run," WilyKit squealed fearfully.

"No, I don't think so!" Damien snarled, and lunged at them. First he swiped at WilyKit, his razor sharp claws missing her back by inches. WilyKat reached into his pouch and threw some smoke bomb marbles at him to buy them enough time to move, and the pair of them ran down the hallway with the enraged Damien in hot pursuit. Panicking, they turned a corner looking for the exit. Unfortunately they found a dead end instead, and it would prove to be a deadly error in judgment. They turned and gulped, knowing what it meant when the demon arrived. Damien had them cornered.

"You won't take us without a fight," WilyKat stated bravely.

The demon laughed. "As if two weak cubs such as yourselves could be a challenge." He drew back his arm and struck WilyKat hard in the head, knocking him to the ground.

"No!" cried WilyKit. "WilyKat!" As she faced their attacker, ready to put up whatever fight she could, Damien then struck her as well, and she fell onto the floor helplessly next to her twin.

Damien snorted derisively. "Some challenge."

He plucked the children off the floor and chuckled to himself. "At least that worthless jackal Mutant won't be lonely in the dungeon anymore." He turned and headed to the cell chamber, where he unceremoniously threw the pair of them into directly across from Jackalman.

"It's about time!" Jackalman shouted when Damien came in. "You'd better let me out now!"

Damien scowled at the Mutant. "Dream on. I just brought some company for you to talk to." He smirked cruelly at the three of them. "I do hope you like your new home. Enjoy dying together." With that, he then turned and left the three to rot in his dungeon.


	5. Chapter 5

In the bleak territory of DarkSide, the trio of Lunatacs consisting of RedEye, TugMug, and Alluro arrived at the ruins they had fought the Thundercats at the day before. RedEye brought the Lunattacker to a stop and surveyed the area. "It shouldn't take too long to get the Thundrillium."

"Good," Alluro said sourly, still bitter that he had been railroaded into the rush fueling mission. "I'm exhausted. I got barely any sleep last night."

"It's your own fault," TugMug said with a shrug. "No one made you stay up all night in the control room." The graviton bounced out of the Lunattacker and began lifting heavy rocks in the excavation area with his gravity carbine.

Alluro frowned irritably and pulled some equipment out of the back of the Lunattacker. "Actually, TugMug, I was working. Not that I'd expect someone who does so little of it to notice."

"Working?" TugMug snorted incredulously. "Come off it, Alluro, you were just killing time while you waited up for Chilla. That's the _real _reason you're so pissy. That and the fact that she didn't return."

The hypnotist's eyes narrowed. "I think not. You may not understand the intricacies of Skytomb's network, but I was doing maintenance on one of the energy systems. RedEye can tell you how buggy it's been lately."

RedEye grunted as he lifted some rocks containing Thundrillium ore. "The fourth level system has been buggy enough that it's been giving me trouble, and I'm the one who coded it," the darkling said evenly. "But I don't see why the middle of the night would be the time to tackle such a project, especially considering you were in a coma only hours earlier."

"It doesn't matter," Alluro grumbled in reply, and stalked back toward the Lunattacker to retrieve another piece of equipment.

The rest of their conversation was interrupted as a rumble in the distance became loud enough to catch their attention. They turned in the direction of the noise and saw, to their dismay, the Thundertank roaring toward them. "The damned cats," TugMug growled. "Take them out!" Red Eye and Alluro nodded and jumped back into the Lunattacker, while TugMug wheeled toward them with his carbine aimed.

The Thundertank fired several shots on the three Lunatacs, knocking TugMug backward before he could react. Alluro aimed one of the firebomb cannons at the tank and fired back, but Cheetara's marksmanship was better than his that day and she was able to disable the Lunattacker's engines and power with a carefully aimed blast and shut it down. Once Lion-O swerved out of the way of the fiery blast from now-stopped enemy vehicle, he brought the Thundertank to a stop and climbed out with Cheetara, hand weapons drawn.

"I believe that Thundrillium is ours," Lion-O announced authoritatively. "We found it first, and began mining the site for ourselves. You've no claim to it, Lunatacs."

The Lunatacs were not impressed by Lion-O's speech. "You know how the saying goes, Thundercats. Finders keepers..." RedEye sneered as he dismounted from the Lunattacker and fired his sidewinder at them several times in rapid succession. Both Lion-O and Cheetara leapt to avoid being hit by the blasts, and the cheetah used her lightning speed to double around behind the darkling and knock him to the ground with her staff.

TugMug raised his gravity carbine to fire upon Cheetara, but Lion-O saw his attack coming and raised the Sword of Omens to protect her. He let out a loud cry of "Hoooo!" and a beam from the sword knocked TugMug backwards, sending the gravity beam meant for Cheetara off into the sky.

Alluro joined into the fray by swinging his psyche club, and he sent the pulsing aqua crystal on his weapon to float above Lion-O's head. "Give up, Lion-O," he urged hypnotically. "We outnumber you. We outpower you. You cannot hope to defeat us. You are helpless."

The lion's eyes glazed over as he was caught in the beam, and Cheetara knew she had to act fast. Fortunately for her Lord, fast was her specialty. In a flash she was behind Alluro, bringing her staff down on the hypnotist's head before either RedEye or TugMug could move to stop her. He let out a yelp of pain and whirled around, but that broke his concentration, and his hold over Lion-O was lost.

"They should've left you in your coma," Cheetara hissed.

Lion-O shook off the last of the hypnotic effects and shot all three of the Lunatacs with a beam from the sword to stun them.

The battle now won with the Thundercats the victor, the two tied up the defeated Lunatacs loosely, their binds just confining enough to keep them out of their way while they decided what to do with them. Lion-O and Cheetara exchanged a look, and then loaded the unlucky trio into the Thundertank's storage bay for the time being. Once that was taken care of, they proceeded to load the mined Thundrillium into the storage bay right next to them.

"If you think you'll be able to hold us as prisoners, you're wrong, Thundercats," TugMug growled.

Cheetara narrowed her eyes as she laid a hand on the hatch. "Oh believe me, we don't want you. Don't worry, we'll be sure to drop you off somewhere near Skytomb before we take _our_ Thundrillium back to the lair."

"Of course, riding with the Thundrillium in the back, the ride might be a little bumpy..." Lion-O laughed.

The Lord's mirth was cut short when a growl from Eye of Thundera came from the sword in his claw shield. "The sword!" he exclaimed. "Someone's in trouble!"

"Tygra!" Cheetara whispered, fearing the worst for their missing friend.

Lion-O lifted the sword out of its sheath and held it to his eyes. "Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight!"

A troubling vision of the Thunderkittens being cornered, struck at, and overpowered by the supernatural form Damien came to him. "Oh no," he breathed, dropping the sword.

"What happened?" an unimpressed RedEye sneered from inside the storage bay. "Snarf forget to use the litter box?"

"Shut up," Cheetara snapped, glaring angrily at the captive Lunatacs only for a moment before turning to Lion-O. "What is it? Is it Tygra? Is he hurt? Is he…"

The young Lord shook his head. "No. It's the Thunderkittens. They were attacked and captured by some evil demon creature calling himself Lord Damien, in a place that appeared to be in a landscape like that of the unicorn forest."

His announcement stunned everyone, including the Lunatacs. "Did you say 'Damien'?" Alluro questioned, with a hint of worry in his voice.

Lion-O turned to the captives and regarded them with a quizzical, impatient frown. "Yes, why?"

"Damien is the name of the man that Chilla..." his voice trailed off.

"Ran off with," RedEye finished. The tied up Alluro next to him shot RedEye a dirty look.

"It can't be the same guy," TugMug argued. "Chilla said he was good looking, and I don't think a demon is her type. None of us like Mumm-Ra that much."

Alluro struggled within his binds, feeling a sudden sense of urgency, but he could not wiggle out of them, especially with all of the bulky Thundrillium rocks blocking his way. "But it is in the unicorn forest isn't it? And don't forget, that's where Jackalman disappeared as well."

"Wait, Jackalman disappeared?" Cheetara asked, turning a curious gaze toward the bound Lunatacs. Her intuition tingled, and although she also felt that they needed to find the kittens as soon as possible, she had a feeling that the Lunatacs might be able to give them the information that would allow them to piece it all together. Although she did not trust them, the news that both Jackalman and Chilla were missing and that Chilla was last seen in the company of a creature bearing the same name as the kittens' captor was important enough a lead to pursue. "That's very odd. Tygra is also missing."

"No real loss," RedEye growled.

Cheetara ignored him and continued, glancing between the Lunatacs and Lion-O. "He left to be with a woman named Celeste, the one who gave him the means to heal me. The Thunderkittens left to search for him in the Unicorn Forest."

"What?" Lion-O exclaimed, stunned by Cheetara's revelation.

"They weren't defying your request to leave him in peace, Lion-O," she said quickly, holding up a hand while she explained. "I talked with them, and they had no intent to invade his privacy, they just wanted to make sure he was all right."

Lion-O frowned. "I'm not exactly angry, but now they're in danger for their curiosity. I hope we can get there in time." He climbed back into the Thundertank and started the engine

"Yes, that's the most important thing," Cheetara agreed. "First Tygra vanishes to be with Celeste, now this Damien has captured the Thunderkittens, and we find out Chilla—who also disappeared—is involved with this man. And to top it all off one of the Mutants is missing to boot, vanished in the same area." She reached to shut the compartment holding the Lunatacs so they could be on their way.

"Wait!" RedEye interrupted. "Who is Celeste?"

"Celeste is the healer who gave Tygra the elixir to save Cheetara," Lion-O called out.

"Isn't she the one who gave it to you too?" Cheetara asked the Lunatacs. "I know you must have gotten some sample of it, or Alluro would still be comatose."

Alluro shook his head. "No, Damien is the one we obtained it from. He gave it to Chilla. That's how they met."

"And she left to see him later that night," TugMug added. "She never came back. Looks like your tiger friend did the same thing. So much for Thundercat loyalty," he finished with a sneer.

Ignoring the barb, Cheetara's eyes grew wide with terrible realization. "He gave me the elixir and then left with only a note saying he wanted to be with Celeste. When he was in the Lair, he kept saying how beautiful and wonderful she was."

"That's exactly what happened with Chilla," Alluro said, frowning at the cheetah. "She was acting very strangely, as if she cared for this Damien, and when we questioned her on it she got defensive and left."

Lion-O groaned, overhearing the conversation from within the Thundertank. "And if Damien is what I saw in the Eye, and treated Chilla in the same way Celeste did Tygra, then that means Celeste must—"

"She's just like him," Cheetara said, horrified. "And she has Tygra in her power, while Damien has the kittens! Lion-O, we have to get there now. Call the others!"

"What about us?" RedEye demanded.

"You'll just have to hang out in the storage compartment in the back for a little while longer," Cheetara replied, and slammed the hatch shut. The Thundertank took off with a roar toward the forest, much to the Lunatacs' discomfort.

* * *

The bird that the Mutants pursued slowed in flight and swooped downward into the unicorn forest. The Mutants followed, recognizing the area as the same general area in which Chilla had gone with the now missing Jackalman the day before. Once on the ground they parked their vehicles on the forest floor, while the bird perched on the branch of a tree at the edge of a path. It began to caw loudly, trying to draw their attention.

"The eagle has landed, and I don't see Jackalman," Slythe growled. "So what now, Vultureman?"

"Caw, how the in the name of Plundarr am I supposed to know?"

"Well you are the bird-Mutant, yesss? It was your bird-brained idea to follow that bird, so you tell us!"

Vultureman sighed and surveyed his surroundings. "I suppose we could start by following this path."

The bird's caws fell silent as Vultureman spoke, as if to indicate that he was correct.

"Hoo hoo, I could have guessed that much," an unimpressed Monkian grumbled. "Let's not waste any more time. The sooner we find Jackalman, the sooner we get back home." He started off down the dirt road, and Vultureman and Slythe fell in step and followed.

It was not long before the group of Mutants came upon the hidden village. They saw Celeste and Damien's manor in the distance and decided that it would be the most logical place to begin looking. Clutching their weapons, they stomped defiantly toward it. When they approached the gates, they found them empty and unguarded, which might have struck them as strange had they been thinking strategically, but it did not concern them and they pushed their way in. They passed a few wispy-looking human-like servants, but they shrank away from the terrible creatures, knowing themselves to be no match for the intimidating trio of Mutants. Soon they found themselves looking into the courtyard.

There they saw Chilla dressed in an uncharacteristic outfit stretched upon a chaise lounge, casually eating what appeared to be a frozen confection. A human-looking male sat beside her, his arm draped around her shoulders in what seemed more of a possessive than affectionate gesture. When they looked to the other side, they could also see Tygra, standing obliviously with a woman who bore a resemblance to Chilla's lover. What they did not see was Jackalman, and that made them furious. It would seem that their suspicions of Chilla and foul play with her stranger were correct. Snarling with rage, the three Mutants charged into the courtyard, weapons at the ready.

"What have you done with Jackalman, yesss?" Slythe demanded in a loud hiss.

All four of them turned toward the intruders. Damien and Celeste exchanged brief looks, and regarded the interlopers with a cold and angry glare, while their victims, Chilla and Tygra, eyed them with a surprised and startled look. Whoever they might have expected to show up in Celeste and Damien's palace, the Mutants were not it.

Tygra blinked as the reptilian spoke. "Slythe?"

Chilla narrowed her gaze in clear irritation at the Mutants. "Why are _you_ here?"

Vultureman stepped forward and put his hands on his hips in a defiant stance. "Caw," he began, "we have evidence that Jackalman's disappearance is related to someone in this place. And since you're here, Chilla, and you were the last one to see him, I think you know something about it. I highly doubt it's coincidence."

The ice Lunatac was on her feet in a flash, her temper flaring despite the effects of the food, drink, and magic that sedated her. "Worthless throwback! How _dare _you come here and accuse me of anything?"

Damien quickly joined Chilla's side, and addressed them in a dark and dangerous tone. "You disgusting Mutants have the audacity to barge into our home and accuse my dear sweet Chilla of treachery? I suggest you leave now, before you are forcibly removed."

Monkian could not help but laugh rudely at the man's description of the Chilla he knew. "Hoo hoo, Chilla sweet? That's rich! She's the meanest bitch that's ever set foot on Third Earth."

A low growl came from the disguised demon, and in a flash he grabbed Monkian's arm and twisted it in a deceptively strong hold. "You will apologize to the lady now, Mutant."

Slythe raised his weapon to strike but could not help but laugh at the image of a vicious Lunatac warrior like Chilla called a lady. "Show ussss one and we will," he roared with a cruel laugh.

Damien's blue eyes flashed an infuriated red, but Celeste glided between them before the confrontation went further. Though she was as angry as her brother, she was not willing to let his temper cost them both their newest victims and their even more precious energy by showing them their true forms too soon. "Remain calm, Damien. These loathsome creatures aren't worth the energy it would take to dispense of them." She turned to face the trio of Mutants. "If you've come here to make yourselves heard, then state your business. Now."

Damien snarled, but relented his grip and released Monkian. The simian shook his arm and moved to strike back, but Slythe blocked him with his weapon before he could finish and Vultureman stepped forward. "Our fellow Mutant Jackalman disappeared, and we have reason to believe he was in this area when he disappeared, caw, and as we already said, Chilla was the last one to see him."

The icewalker exhaled a frosty mist that visibly showed her growing irritation. "And I told you losers that I don't know—or care—what happened to him!"

Her denial only served to incense Slythe further. "You're a liar," he hissed accusingly. "And we will get the truth from you, Lunatac, even if we have to beat it out of you!"

Tygra stepped forth to do his part to smooth things over as a favor to his mistress. "Now Slythe, I know Chilla's nature as well as you, I'm sure, but she's not lying about that. She's been here the whole time with us and none of us have seen Jackalman."

The Mutants turned and faced the Thundercat, surprised to hear him speak up in defense of one of the Lunatacs. "No one asssssked you, Thundercat," Slythe replied darkly. "And besides, what makes you think Chilla isn't lying? A Thundercat of all things should know from past experience that this icy bitch would jusssst as soon kill you as look at you."

Celeste took a step toward the Mutant trio. "Tygra speaks the truth. He's spent enough time with us to know our village is an entirely peaceful one, and no villainy or treachery takes place here. It is indeed unfortunate that your friend is missing, but I assure you that we know absolutely nothing of the whereabouts of your missing Mutant," she informed him coolly. "Now kindly take our information and leave our home."

"Immediately," added the still-seething Damien.

Their conversation was abruptly cut off when the Thunderstrike landed on the opposite end of the courtyard.

* * *

The three captive Lunatacs in the storage compartment of the Thundertank grumbled and groaned as they were tossed like so much dead weight back and forth against the rough rocks and metal walls of their confinement. It was clear Lion-O's driving was not the most gentle, but the Thundertank was designed for functionality, not comfort, and Panthro never took into consideration that anyone might need a comfortable ride in the storage compartment.

"Ouch!" the very aggravated Alluro growled as he was thrust against a rock that dug deeper into his skin when the bulk of RedEye's torso slammed into him. "For all the forgiveness and benevolence nonsense they always spout, those Thundercats certainly don't seem to feel any guilt in subjecting someone who was in a coma less than a day ago to a ride like this."

"Oh, quit your whining about the coma already," TugMug snapped. "That elixir left you in perfect health, so you're no worse off than we are. Shut up!"

The tank lurched again, and the ropes on RedEye's hands caught on a jagged rock, stretching their limits significantly. The darkling immediately noticed the advantage and managed to wriggle out of them. "Hey... my hands are free."

"Good," Alluro replied grouchily. "Now untie us so we can get out of here."

The three Lunatacs squirmed and wriggled around in the dark, cramped space as best they could to allow RedEye to remove their binds. It only took a few minutes, but it felt much longer to the very uncomfortable trio. Once they discarded the last rope, RedEye pushed hard on the closed hatch keeping them imprisoned. "We're still locked in. Even not bound, it'll take us a while to break out of here," he said with clear disappointment in his voice. "Most likely they'll hear us and stop to make sure we're secure as long as they're in the tank itself, so we'll have to wait until they stop before we can blast our way out of here."

TugMug reached into a pocket and pulled out a communicator. "Maybe I can reach Luna and have her speed things up for us." He switched the device on and entered the code to page Skytomb.

"Luna here," came the shrilly reply through the speaker. "What is keeping the three of you? I've been trying to page you on the Lunattacker for the last twenty minutes for a progress update. Haven't you loaded that Thundrillium yet?"

"We ran into some feline difficulties, Luna," TugMug explained, wincing at the volume and how unpleasantly her voice echoed against the metal. "They got the better of us and have us trapped in the back of their damned Thundertank."

"With the Thundrillium, to add insult to injury," Alluro added.

"What?" came Luna's infuriated response. "Can't you idiots do anything without me there to keep you in line?"

RedEye scowled and made a rude Plundarrian gesture at the communicator, while TugMug answered her.

"Just use Skytomb to track the Thundertank to back us up. We're going to make a break for it when we stop."

"All right," she squawked back, "I'll be there shortly, but try not to screw anything else up in the meantime, if you can manage that much. Luna out."

* * *

From her hiding spot in the shadows, the former servant Mirlana watched the Mutants confront Celeste and Damien, and the heard the Thunderstrike coming in for a landing. She steeled herself for the inevitable, realizing that the time for her to stop standing by and take action had finally come. _It's time. Finally Damien and Celeste's evil will be stopped._ She took a deep breath, and ran for the dungeon.

She flew down the stairs, not allowing herself the luxury of time to think about the consequences of her actions. When she came into the room she saw Jackalman and the Thunderkittens trading insults.

The jackal's interest shifted from them to her when she entered, however, and his canine eyes brightened when he saw her. He took her new warrior maiden attire as a positive sign that something was happening. "You! You came back! Did you get us help?"

WilyKit and WilyKat eyed the woman in shock. "You're friends with _him_?"

"After I set you free, I hope you would call me a friend too. I've come to help you. What Celeste and Damien are doing is wrong, and I'm ashamed to say that I stood by silent and afraid for too long, for too many years, while they've played their games and took so many of the innocent."

"I wouldn't call Chilla 'innocent'," WilyKat said quietly, and both his sister and Jackalman, in spite of his inherent dislike of the feline children, smirked at his remark.

The humor of the situation was lost on Mirlana. "It doesn't matter. I can't watch them to do to her and Tygra what they've done to so many others, and what they did to me so many years ago." She retrieved the keys from their hook by the door and unlocked Jackalman's cell. "Your friends from Castle Plundarr are here, and they were followed by a vehicle that bears the same insignia as the one worn by Tygra and the children here."

"The Thundercats are here?" WilyKit said hopefully. "Don't worry, they'll help us and set things right."

"Nyah, and the Mutants will give that worthless pair of demons what is coming to them once I let them know what happened."

"Then let's waste no more time," Mirlana said as she freed the kittens from their cell. "Follow me. It's time to put those immortal fiends in their place."

The four of them hurried out of the dank dungeon and up the twisted stone staircase to the hall above. In the hall, Mirlana stopped and pointed in the direction of the courtyard. "You'll find your allies there, confronting Damien and Celeste. Hurry!"

"What about you?" WilyKat asked.

"I'll make my own appearance."

Trusting that she knew what she was doing, the Thunderkittens and Jackalman did not question the former slave further, and hurried to join their countrymen in battle. As they approached they could see the other Mutants facing off with Celeste and Damien, while Tygra and Chilla looked on in an oddly detached fashion. When they got closer, they could see Bengali, Pumyra, and Lynx-O disembarking from the Thunderstrike, preparing to confront the demons themselves. WilyKat turned briefly to call to Mirlana to let her know what was going on, but to his surprise she was no longer in sight and already gone.


	6. Chapter 6

The Thundercats of the Tower of Omens had been thrilled, although puzzled, to spot Tygra in the mixed company of Celeste, Damien, Chilla, and the Mutants. They had no idea what the Mutants were doing there at all, and were doubly confused to find Chilla there. It struck them as very strange that she and Tygra would willingly be in one another's company. They landed quickly, intent on finding out as soon as they could exactly what was going on, and the three of them ran to the spot where their missing Thundercat, Chilla, and the two mysterious humanoids faced off with the Mutants.

"Tygra!" Pumyra called as they approached. "There you are! We've so been worried about you!"

"You don't need to be concerned for me," Tygra replied flatly, with a faraway look in his eyes. He did not even acknowledge the presence of Bengali or Lynx-O, and Pumyra had the feeling that he would not have addressed her had she not spoken directly to him.

Celeste drew Tygra close to her and snaked an arm around his waist. "No need to worry, Thundercats, I'm taking good care of him."

Bengali growled, instinctively distrusting the woman. He knew Tygra well enough to see that he was not himself at all, and he was certain that she was the reason for it. Reaching for his hammer, he said, "Is that so?"

Lynx-O, far more diplomatic than his younger companion, addressed the four of them directly. "Are the Mutants giving you trouble?"

Damien glared at the Mutants hatefully. "It's nothing we can't handle ourselves, noble Thundercats."

The situation complicated itself further when WilyKit, WilyKat, and Jackalman ran through the archway and joined the fray in the now rather crowded courtyard. "Over here!" WilyKit shouted to the other Thundercats. They turned to face the kittens, who were both waving as they breathlessly joined them. They did not have time to question their company of Jackalman, as they had not yet gotten a chance to even ask Tygra why Chilla was there.

"Thunderkittens!" Bengali exclaimed. "What are you—?"

"Kill them!" an angry shout from Jackalman to the Mutants interrupted. The Thundercats' attention turned his way instantly, but it was clear that the Mutant meant Damien and Celeste and not them, that time at least. "They're some kind of demons! They've had me locked me up in their dungeon and nearly tore me to pieces just for watching him," he gestured to Damien, "sweet-talk Chilla!"

"It's true!" WilyKit cried out, much to the surprise of both her fellow Thundercats and the Mutants. "Damien locked us up too! He's some kind of monster!"

With that revelation Celeste shot Damien an angry look and he could hear her voice echo in his mind. _Look at what your foolish impulsiveness has done,_ she berated him telepathically. Outwardly, she turned toward the newly arrived Thundercats. "Surely you don't believe their maniacal ravings? To think that we would harm anyone for something as trivial as eavesdropping, much less terrorize innocent children?"

"You're a liar," WilyKat shouted, his young voice ringing high with accusation. "We know what you and your brother are!"

"No, WilyKat!" exclaimed Tygra, horrified that anyone, much less one of his fellow Thundercats, could think of his sweet Celeste as such a thing. "She's not evil at all. She saved Cheetara's life! Why would she have been so kind and generous to us only to hurt you?"

"Dear children, you know that _I _did nothing to you," Celeste added, flashing them a wounded look.

"Not us," WilyKat argued, "but you did hurt Jackalman with his help." He pointed to Damien.

"The jackal is a liar," Damien sneered. "You and your kind know what a treacherous sort the Mutants are."

"You're a liar too," WilyKit accused back. "You did so hurt us, and Jackalman had no reason to lie to us. He may be a Mutant, but he's telling the truth about you and what you are!"

Tygra shook his head. He did not understand what was going on. While he could almost believe that Damien had done something given that he had seen him be a bit of a hothead when the Mutants had first arrived, he refused believe that Celeste could have been possibly involved. "WilyKat, Celeste is _not_ evil. Do you think I'd be here with her if she was?"

WilyKat tried to reason with the tiger. "Tygra, please believe us. You know we wouldn't lie about something like this. Look at these bruises. Do you think we did this to ourselves?"

Pumyra looked from Tygra to the kittens, unsure of what to think. She was inclined to believe the Thunderkittens, especially in light of Tygra's odd behavior, but she could not believe that Tygra would willingly defend a villainous creature, either.

Bengali interrupted the debate with an announcement that the Thundertank was arriving. To everyone's shock, the mighty vehicle crashed through the surrounding brush on the one side of the courtyard not surrounded by palace wall, and skidded across the cobblestone patio. Lion-O and Cheetara both leapt out and raced to join their friends.

"Tygra!" Cheetara exclaimed. "You're here!"

Lion-O was relieved to see the Thunderkittens also present, and the Thundercats from the Tower of Omens, who he had not been able to get in contact with directly earlier. He had left a message with Snarfer, but they had landed before it had gone through, apparently, because they seemed just as surprised to see him and Cheetara was he was to see them. He faced Damien angrily. "I know how you treated the Thunderkittens, you bullying monster, and I'm here to stop you from doing further harm!"

"Lion-O, what's going on?" Tygra demanded. "Celeste and Damien did nothing to the kittens!"

"Why won't you believe us, Tygra? What's wrong with you?" The strain of the situation showed in the plaintive note in WilyKit's voice.

"The Thunderkittens are telling the truth, Tygra. The Sword of Omens showed me an image of him, calling himself Lord Damien, and attacking the Thunderkittens. I know you want to believe what they've told you, but these people aren't who they claim to be, Tygra."

"The Sword might have shown a false image," Tygra countered. "Couldn't Mumm-Ra have disguised himself? It wouldn't be the first time."

Cheetara went to Tygra's side. "It wasn't Mumm-Ra, Tygra. We would've known his magic. I would've sensed it. It _is _them. I can sense _that_." She shot a wary, and angry, look at Celeste and Damien.

"If it's any of them it's just Damien," he argued desperately. "Not Celeste!"

Lion-O shook his head. "I'm sorry that she's deceived you, Tygra, but it's true. Cheetara and I put together what we know and what the Sword of Omens showed us with what we learned from the Lunatacs and—"

At the mention of her own kind, the previously quiet Chilla spoke up. "What are you talking about, Thundercat? No Lunatac would ever have anything to do with you or the cheetah," she snarled.

As if on cue, the storage bay of the Thundertank burst open from an electrical blast. RedEye, TugMug, and Alluro had spent the time since the Thundertank had been stopped readying themselves to make their escape, and once they had their way out, they wasted no time getting out and joining the angry crowd.

Chilla regarded the trio of approaching Lunatacs incredulously for a moment, and then glowered at Lion-O. "You locked them up?" she hissed contemptuously. "How dare you treat a Lunatac with such disrespect?"

"Respect is earned and you've earned none," Cheetara snapped at Chilla. "Your friends were stealing _our_ Thundrillium."

Damien decided he had heard enough of the entire exchange, and stepped between Chilla and the other Lunatacs. "Don't worry about _them_, dear Chilla. I'll take care of it for you. I'll see to it personally that they will never trouble you—or me—again."

"Don't listen to him, Chilla," Alluro called to her. The psi hoped fervently that she would listen to him, although he had his doubts. In the short time that he had been there, he could already see how changed she was, how taken in she seemed, by the stranger. The sight riled him deeply, and not only because he was concerned for her as a member of his team.

"Chilla, get away from him!" TugMug shouted. "He's not what you think he is!"

The icewalker narrowed her eyes at the other Lunatacs. "I've had enough of your judgments! Damien has treated me far better than any of you ever did. He wouldn't lie to me, but you—" her gaze stopped on Alluro.

"You know I wouldn't, my love," Damien interjected smoothly, and stepped in front of Alluro to block him from her line of sight. He needed Chilla to see him, and only him, to keep her firmly in his influence.

Something in her tone and the way Chilla looked at him stung Alluro more deeply than he ever would have admitted, to himself, her, or any of the other Lunatacs. He took a step forward and addressed her, calling over Damien. "I don't know what he's told you, Chilla, but you're wrong. He's a demonic creature, a mage like Mumm-Ra with a prettier façade. If you won't believe me, that Thundercat Lion-O saw it as well in that damned sword of his after he and Cheetara got the better of us at the excavation site. Do you think that the felines would lie as well, following that ridiculous code of theirs? That man beside you cares nothing for you, Chilla, only for what he can get from you."

"No," Chilla spat back defiantly at him. "I don't believe you."

"I wouldn't believe him either, Chilla, but he's telling the truth, at least about Damien," WilyKit shouted to her. It occurred to her that it was odd to want to say anything to help Chilla, but she supposed it was the right thing to do and that was why.

WilyKat nodded and defended his sister's words. "Damien caught WilyKit and I watching the four of you on the patio and knocked us out, and then he threw us in the dungeon to keep us quiet. Jackalman was already there when we woke up. You have to believe us!" He looked at Tygra, who watched the scene with an unreadable expression. "You believe us, don't you Tygra? You know we wouldn't lie to you about something like this. You're the one who taught us the Code of Thundera."

"Truth, justice, honor, and loyalty," WilyKit added. "We are telling the truth and we're loyal to you Tygra, because we care."

Tygra did not have time to answer before Celeste spoke for him. She was beginning to feel the hold on her own rage slip, and she narrowed her eyes in displeasure as she addressed the Thunderkittens. "You children are delusional. You've concocted a fantastical account of some attack and kidnapping, and seem to have even convinced yourselves that it's true because you can't handle the _real_ truth—that Tygra would rather be with me than any of you," she asserted coldly. "That's what is really going on here, isn't it?" She passed her gaze across each Thundercat's face before speaking again, as if daring them to challenge her. When none did, and when Tygra did not disagree, she spoke again, that time in a menacing and threatening manner. "I suggest you leave my village _immediately_. All of you. You can see that Tygra and Chilla are fine, and perfectly happy. You Mutants have your missing Jackalman and you felines your kitten twins. Go on peacefully before you start something I promise you'll regret."

Lion-O stood his ground and held up the Sword of Omens. "I won't be swayed by your lies, Celeste. The Eye of Thundera knows and shows to me the truth of all things, and none of your powers can persuade me to believe that the Eye of Thundera would be wrong. It'll take more than telling us what we want to hear to get rid of the Thundercats, especially when the life of someone we love is at stake. You've tricked and entrapped Tygra and hurt WilyKit and WilyKat. For those crimes, you must be punished." He raised his sword high. "Sword of Omens, strike for truth, justice, honor, and loyalty, and destroy this evil with divine power!"

Celeste glanced quickly at Tygra, meeting his eyes and magically projecting her will into him. The dazed tiger felt her command, her presence, and her influence fill him completely, and it willed him to stop Lion-O at all costs. The energy within the Thundercat Lord's sword built to a maximum around the eye of Thundera and pulsed through the gleaming metal blade, aiming for Celeste. The desperate tiger then shouted "No!" and lunged at Lion-O with a feral growl as he pointed the mystic sword at his lover. "I love her and you won't harm her, no matter what! She's everything to me, and I won't let you destroy her!"

Everyone gasped as the formerly docile Tygra barreled into Lion-O with adrenaline strength and knocked him over, caught completely off-guard as he never would have expected one of his own Thundercats to attack him in such a way. The enraged tiger kicked the Sword of Omens from the lion's grasp, sending it skittering across the cobblestones. Tygra wasted no time and struck him hard on the head while Lion-O sought to defend himself from the attack without harming Tygra in the process, knowing even as he savagely attacked him that he was not in his right mind.

Adding further to the chaos, Skytomb descended from the sky above to the land behind the palace wall. "Luna's finally here," RedEye said with a frown as he glanced upward upon hearing the noise. "It's about damn time."

Using the distractions to his advantage, Alluro raised his psyche club and dislodged the crystal to float above Chilla's head. One way or another, he had decided, he would see Damien's hold on her broken, even if he had to thrall her himself to do it. "Chilla," he called to her loudly and forcefully. "You can not resist me. You will leave Damien and return with us. You _belong_ with us. You will _not_ stay with him."

The hypnotist's beam confused Chilla further, but for the moment, Alluro's will proved stronger. "I—I won't stay," the dazed icewalker stammered.

Having his plaything taken away from him was enough to fully incite Damien into a rage, and he faced Alluro with an expression of pure hatred and evil. "Oh no, you won't get her away from me that easily, Lunatac!" he snarled in a booming voice, as cold and sinister as death itself. Damien faced Chilla and thrust his psychic will into her at full force. "Chilla, resist him. He is not your friend. He doesn't care about you, not like _I_ do. He wants only to control you, to make you his to use as he pleases, to take from you and hurt you. He is jealous of what we share, and wants you for himself. He is your enemy."

Damien's will flooded Chilla's consciousness, and not unlike the way Tygra had succumbed to Celeste's suggestion, she was overpowered by his presence within her despite Alluro's intervention. The psi's powers of hypnotic suggestion, strong as they were, could not compete with the supernatural will of a demon in possession of a willing body. "Enemy," Chilla then murmured, and turned to Alluro with a cold and contemptuous glare.

"He's using his weapons against you, using his mind powers to try and control your actions," Damien continued, gliding sibilantly to Chilla's side. "It's he that is your enemy, he and the rest of your kind. Get rid of him, Chilla. Get rid of them all."

Chilla met her master's eyes with blind obedience. "He's an enemy… I must get rid of him..."

Alluro's power over her was now completely nullified, and the light in the orb of his psyche club faded and the crystal returned to its holder. Damien let out a smug laugh at the hypnotist's defeat as Chilla faced Alluro with unbridled hatred burning in her eyes. "Damien's right," she snarled with angry frost on her breath. "You're trying to use me, trying to control me," she accused, and spat an icy blast of air at him.

"No, Chilla," RedEye interrupted, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Alluro ducked to the ground and rolled out of the way just as her breath iced the ground where he stood. "You really think I'm using you? And what exactly do you think he's doing to you, Chilla?" he countered. "From what I see, it's he that says 'jump' and you the one answering 'how high?' He's taken you away from your home and those who know you best just so he can easily have his way with you and have you in his power."

His words were met with another angry blast of ice, that one connecting with his ankle. The intense cold burned, but the psi winced and continued, hoping that some part of his reason would get through to her. "Yes Chilla, he's the one manipulating you like a puppet, but you say _I'm_ using you?"

TugMug and RedEye exchanged looks, and charged in to interrupt the scuffle. They intended to make Chilla listen to reason in a more practical way, with a blow to the head to calm her down. She saw the darkling and graviton approach and blew an arctic wind of fury at them, stunning them in a blanket of frost. They were not frozen solid, but it would take them time to recover, and that gave Chilla ample time to refocus her attention on Alluro.

"You're a liar, Alluro, and I hate you," she spat venomously. "I will kill you, all of you! But you'll be first!" The crazed ice warrior dived at the psi and lunged for his throat. No match for her in physical combat, Chilla knocked Alluro over easily and pinned him to the ground. He struggled beneath her, but Damien's power infused her with an unnatural strength that made it impossible for him to throw her off. She circled her cold fingers around Alluro's throat and tightened them.

Damien laughed arrogantly as he sneered at the psi on the ground. "She's mine, Lunatac. She'll always be mine, and I'll enjoy taking every drop of that vital, icy fire in her and making _it _mine as well."

A blazing arrow of fire originating from a balcony above the courtyard lodged itself in Damien's shoulder as he finished his sneering victory speech. "This is the only fire you'll get, you selfish bastard!" Mirlana shouted hatefully, loading up her bow for another shot at him.

Damien whirled to face his assailant, and when he saw who it was, and wearing her old warrior maiden gear no less, his jaw dropped in astonishment, just for a moment. "You... _dare_ to attack me? The one who gave you an eternal life in paradise?" he exclaimed in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how many years dead you would be now if I hadn't taken you as my own, you ungrateful little fool?"

"Shut up, Damien!" she hollered back. "I've lived with your ego and fantasy for far too many years now, and I won't anymore! It's over and I'm helping them end it. It may've taken me years to do the right thing, but I've finally had enough. I'll see you and Celeste burn and your evil wiped off the face of Third Earth once and for all!"

The angry former warrior maiden turned to the stunned crowd of Thundercats, Mutants, and Lunatacs gathered in the courtyard. "Don't let Damien and Celeste deceive you any longer! They're not the pleasing creatures they seem to be. They'll lie and connive and scheme to get you to trust them until you're so caught in their web of pleasure that you don't see what they're doing until it's too late." She eyed the enraged Tygra and the hateful Chilla operating under their masters' wills, and shouted to them directly.

"Tygra, Chilla, if you don't believe your friends, listen to me as one who's been in your shoes. Little by little Celeste and Damien will sap your life, feed on your vitality, and change you into a weak shell of a being that lives forever in this place, but only as their slave, doomed to die if you ever leave the borders of this village. Slowly they'll take away your free will and energy until you have no choice but to be their slave, and then when they finally exhaust you of the last of your mortal fiber they'll discard you and find another, then another, then another, and it never stops! I know because I was one of Damien's victims a lifetime ago, and believe me I know and I've seen what they're capable of. The young ones and the jackal are telling the truth. Don't let this go on another night! Stop them now. Destroy them with whatever weapons you have and burn this unholy place to the ground. It's the source of their power. Free all the lost souls like me condemned to live in their pretty hell of lies. Do it now!" With that, she swung off the balcony onto the ground with the others.

As the ex-slave spoke, a look of horrified realization crossed the faces of all of the outsiders but Chilla, who was still choking Alluro, and Tygra, who was still fighting Lion-O. The Thundercat Lord was still trying to hold Tygra off without harming him, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult as while Tygra was formidable on his own, with magic fueling his insanity, he was even more fierce.

Damien howled in outrage. "You'll pay for this outrage with your life, you pitiful ingrate!" He threw his head back and growled inhumanly as he shifted fully into his demonic form. His features twisted into their exaggerated, evil visage while his body grew in size and strength. His immortal form was an imposing sight even to those who had seen it, and his entire being radiated with an intense hatred. He charged at Mirlana with his claws bared.

"Oh no you don't," Jackalman snarled, and while it was not the most noble or dashing attack, smashed a nearby wooden end table over the demon's back. Heroic stunts were hardly a part of his nature, but Mirlana had been an ally to him when he needed help, and he certainly had no love for Damien.

Jackalman's aggression spurred the other Mutants into action, as well as the remaining Lunatacs. Trusting in Mirlana's instructions, they grabbed the torches, candles, and braziers set around the courtyard and began setting fire to the bushes, palace walls, and other neighboring buildings in the village.

Tygra did not relent in his assault on Lion-O. "I don't want to hurt you, Tygra," Lion-O gasped as he grappled with the spellbound tiger. "I know this isn't you doing this to me. It's her, Tygra. She's evil. Do you really believe that someone with good intentions would urge you to destroy your fellow Thundercats?"

Celeste laughed wickedly. "Oh give it up, Lord Lion-O. You lost your dear Tygra to me long ago."

Cheetara twirled her staff defiantly and swung at Celeste. "You haven't won anything yet," she snarled she brought down the end of her weapon on the demoness' head.

Celeste shrieked in fury and fell backwards, scowling. When she landed, she joined her brother and transformed into her own supernatural, evil form. She drew herself to her full, terrible height, and shot Cheetara with an intense beam of dark electrical magic, sending a painful shock through every fiber in her body. The cheetah let out a pained cry and dropped to her knees.

Lion-O rolled out of the way of yet another kick from Tygra. "Tygra, please, listen to us!"

"I won't let you harm her, Lion-O. I love her!" Tygra growled.

Desperate to bring his friend to his senses, Lion-O tried one final tactic. He scrambled away from the tiger's hold and called Sword of Omens back to his hand. "This is the only way left I know of to bring you back to us, Tygra." He raised the sword high and began the familiar chant. "Thunder—Thunder—Thundercats Ho!" The mystic Sword of Omens responded to its master's call and extended to full length. A mighty roar came from the Eye and it projected the Thundercat signal high into the sky.

An amber glow filled Tygra's eyes along with the eyes of each of the other Thundercats present. Their love and awareness of the truth about Celeste filled his mind and forced her wicked will out of him once and for all. "Great Jaga," Tygra murmured, stumbling back as he was overcome with a rush of emotion. "Wh—what came over me?" Terrible memories of Celeste's manipulations and his attack on Lion-O came back to him, and when he looked over at Celeste for confirmation, he saw the terrible sight of her in her true demonic form. "You... you did this to me! You said you loved me…"

Celeste pouted in mock contriteness. "Oh dear Tygra, don't tell me that you'll let a little thing like _this_ come between us?" she sneered. "And to think I had such great plans for us!"

Mirlana held out his missing bolo-whip. "Tygra! I think you'll be needing this again," she shouted, and tossed it to him.

He caught it and lashed it into the air, his strength and power now fully restored by the Eye of Thundera. He stared at Celeste once again, a sad feeling of regret within him. "How could I have ever loved a creature as evil as you? You never loved me. You wanted only to destroy me."

"And one way or another, I will," she said viciously. "I don't lose my battles, striped warrior." She drew back and flung a beam of dark energy at him.

The tiger instinctively lashed his whip and deflected it away from him, and snapped it again in her direction. The demoness drew back, only to be met with a blast from Bengali's hammer and a few exploding marbles courtesy of Pumyra. Lion-O did not wait for her to recover and raised the Sword of Omens one more time. "Ho!" he shouted, and the obedient beam from his sword struck Celeste directly, knocking her backwards.

Several feet away, Chilla still had Alluro pinned to the ground in an icy grip of strangulation. Desperately he reached up and pushed at her as hard as he could, lessening her grip enough so that he could speak. "He's turned you into such a willing slave that you'll even kill for him now?" he choked in disgust.

"Shut up, Alluro," she snarled. "I'm not his slave. He loves me, and I won't let you or anyone else destroy that!"

"Loves you?" he rasped, getting enough air now that he could breathe and gain the strength to finally get out from underneath her. He rubbed his sore neck and scrambled to his feet. "You think he loves you, Chilla? Didn't you hear that warrior maiden say what he does? He doesn't love you. He wants your energy. He's a psychic vampire, turning you into a weak zombie and a slave and you're letting him do it. If that's love, Chilla, I'd like to see what he calls hatred."

"No," Chilla argued defiantly. "You're jealous, like he said! He's promised to spend the rest of our lives together, in paradise, happy. You just can't stand to see me happy, can you?"

Alluro narrowed his eyes, doing his best to brush off the sting in her words. "Look at him, Chilla," he retorted. "Does the thought of spending the rest of your life with _that _make you happy?" He pointed at Damien in his hideous demonic form, cornering Mirlana and Jackalman against a wall.

Something in Chilla snapped when she saw Damien as he really was. "No," she murmured in stunned shock. "That's—that's Damien? It can't be."

"It _is _him!" Mirlana shouted when she saw Chilla looking at them. "That's what he is! Don't let him fool you any longer!"

Damien spun around and saw Chilla staring at him, the recognition of him and his lies apparent in her cold eyes. "Chilla, darling, I can explain..." he intoned in the soft, charming voice he had used in his humanoid illusion. Matched to his demonic face, it was jarringly incongruous.

The icewalker's shocked visage yielded to disgust, and then hatred as her own will came back to her and she saw his manipulations for what they were for the first time. The knowledge of his betrayal and the humiliation of him making a fool of her caused an icy fire of hatred to roil within the very depths of her soul. Alluro, standing beside her from where they had been fighting, watched her expression change with first relief and then smug satisfaction as her true nature re-emerged.

Chilla snarled, exhaling vaporous frost from her nostrils in rage, and faced her ex-lover. "You lied to me, Damien. You _used_ me!" She inhaled sharply and spat an icy gale of wind at him. "No one treats me that way and lives to brag about it!"

Surprised and irritated that his hold on her had been broken so fully, Damien scowled, but still dodged her frosty breath with ease. "Well Chilla, it is indeed a shame that you've chosen your worthless friends over a life with me. Because now… you'll have to die right alongside them." The male demon then fired a powerful blast of magic from his palms directly at Chilla, and although she tried to move out of the way in time, she could not, and it struck her hard in the abdomen. Painful electricity coursed through her cold body and instantly she fell unconscious. Alluro reached for her, and caught her limp form in his arms before she fully hit the ground.

Damien's confrontation with Chilla provided enough of a distraction for Mirlana to load up another fire arrow and take careful aim at him. The demon saw what his former slave was doing a second too late, and with a whoosh her blazing arrow plunged into his body, piercing his supernatural heart.

With a quick survey of the scene around him, Lion-O saw that he now had the opportunity to strike at both of the demons with pure magic that could negate their evil magic, the magic of the Sword of Omens. He knew it to be effective against Mumm-Ra and he hoped in the name of all of his ancestors that it would be equally effective against Celeste and Damien. He raised his sword high and called on the power within the Eye embedded in its hilt. "Sword of Omens, banish these evil creatures to a realm from which they can never harm anyone ever again!" he shouted, his voice full of the authority and command befitting the Lord of the Thundercats.

Obliging the wishes of its master, The Eye of Thundera pulsed with great energy, and a cluster of light formed around it. It grew into a brilliant ball of white fire, and polarized itself into a spectacular ray of light as it shot up the gleaming metal of the Sword of Omens. As it left the very tip of the magical sword it split into two beams. One struck Celeste, and the other Damien. Each howled in pain as the light magic penetrated their bodies and their dark souls, consuming them and tearing apart the very fabric of their being. There was a brilliant flash around them both, followed by an explosion as each demon burst into a hellish ball of flames with one last anguished scream, before they vanished out of existence entirely.

The demise of their masters caused the existence of the entire village, now half afire due to the actions of the Mutants and Lunatacs anyway, to begin to fade out of existence as well.

It was then that Mirlana lost all her strength and fell to the ground, shaking violently.

Jackalman reached for the warrior woman. "What's happening?"

She winced as her skin began to tug and wrinkle, while her bones and muscle within weakened and fell apart. "It's the end of me," she croaked out. "Their power, their evil power, was keeping me alive. Now that power is gone, so I will be too."

"Nyah, but you aren't one of them," he said, not fully understanding what she was talking about. "You helped us. You helped _me_," the jackal continued, doing his best to hold her up. He had grown to respect the warrior woman, and it did not sit well with him that she was falling apart, literally, before his eyes now.

Mirlana fell against him and looked up at him with the weak smile of a pained old woman. "I'm glad I could. Take good care of yourself, my friend," she said weakly.

Lion-O came over to her, and he was shocked to see her hair now gray and her body weak and frail, covered with the spots and wear of age that he had only seen in one very old and wise warrior maiden that Willa had told him was unnaturally old for their tribe. Even as he stood there, he could sense her life force flooding away from her, and he could tell that she was feeling the pain of impending death. "You were very brave," he told her somberly. "The Thundercats will never forget how you helped us defeat them when our friends needed it, and when you knew it meant losing your own life. I admire your courage."

A spasm of pain exploded in her abdomen, and she doubled over in the throes of death. "Terrible as it is, dying's no worse than spending another lifetime with them," she whispered. "I hope the gods forgive me for all the things I've done… that they won't be too cruel in their judgment."

"I believe they will," Lion-O assured her. "May the gods be with you." He lowered his head in respect and sadness.

Mirlana could no longer speak, only grunt a response to him. She used the last of her energy to look at him, and then one final time at the jackal holding her. Her eyes held the silent message of "goodbye" before her vitality disappeared completely and she collapsed into an empty heap of ashen bone and clothing onto the forest floor.

Jackalman stared at her remains sadly, but was shaken out of his depressing thoughts when Slythe, Monkian, and Vultureman came up behind him.

"Hoo hoo, this place is burning fast. We have to leave before we burn with it," Monkian warned them.

"Yessss," Slythe agreed. "Let's get back to Castle Plundarr."

The Mutants exchanged nods and headed back to their vehicles, except for Jackalman, who remained long enough to gather what he could hold of Mirlana's remains—her clothing, her arrow and quiver, a few large bones, and her skull. Holding what he could, he climbed into the back of Vultureman's flying machine. Soon all four Mutants flew off into the night.

Chilla stirred back into consciousness in Alluro's arms. The hypnotist helped her to her feet as TugMug and RedEye joined them. "Where's Damien," she murmured. "Is he dead?"

"Lion-O blasted them with his damned sword. I don't think Damien will be chasing you again anytime soon," TugMug informed her.

RedEye motioned to the shadow of Skytomb looming in the distance. "Let's get back to Skytomb now, before that short little tyrant and her pet get tired of waiting and leave us behind. We've had enough of this nonsense and we got what we came for. Now let's leave before we burn up with this place."

"Right," Alluro agreed.

The exhausted Chilla leaned heavily on Alluro as the four Lunatacs made their way back to the fortress. Once they rejoined Luna and Amok inside, the dark mobile fortress roared to life and ascended into the night sky above, leaving only the Thundercats behind in the burning remains of the palace.

Tygra stared at the ground full of regret and shame. "I can not tell you all how sorry I am for all the trouble I've caused you. The way I acted—I didn't deserve for you to save me, but you did anyway. And for that I am and will always be thankful."

Cheetara offered him a smile. "You were in love with her, Tygra. It's such a powerful emotion, it does funny things to you and everyone else it affects. What's important is that you came through for us when we needed you, and that you're back with us now." She put a hand on his shoulder.

"And we're very glad to have you back, my friend," Lynx-O added.

"That's right," Lion-O agreed. "In your heart you are and will always be a Thundercat. You're forever one of us, and even Celeste and all her wiles couldn't defeat that. I'm still proud to call you one of us."

"I just hope your taste in women improves before next time," Bengali remarked with a teasing smirk.

WilyKat looked around at the wasted and burning village around them. "Come on, let's get back to the Lair, okay? I'd like to put that awful dungeon and the rest of this place behind me."

Tygra gave the boy a smile. "That's the best suggestion I've heard all day."

The Thundercats climbed into their vehicles and went home, leaving the remaining embers of the unnatural village to burn out of existence forever in the depths of the unicorn forest.


	7. Epilogue

The darkness of night had filled the corner of Third Earth that held Castle Plundarr even more fully than it had back in the village where the Mutant who was in the wastelands behind it, Jackalman, had been imprisoned just hours earlier. He had remained relatively silent on the journey back from the unicorn forest, aside from the time he had taken to answer the other Mutants' questions on how he had come to be imprisoned. Slythe had been surprised to hear that Chilla had nothing directly to do with his capture, but neither he nor any of the other Mutants intended on offering any sort of apology to their uneasy allies, the Lunatacs, for their accusations of it. Slythe had wisecracked that perhaps Luna would leave them alone if they thought the Mutants had no respect for them, and Vultureman hoped that he was right. They were tired of dealing with them so often anyhow.

But none of that was on Jackalman's mind as he stood alone in the field behind his fortress on that night.

In his hands he held Mirlana's remains and a shovel. He had not said a word to the other Mutants—likely they would have derided him for it—but he intended to give her a proper burial. Honor was considered a hindrance and a weakness to most Mutants in battle, but the jackal held a lasting respect for the fallen warrior maiden for her kindness toward him. He had at first thought of leaving her remains with the warrior maidens, but in the end had decided against it. If the women did not shoot at him on sight because of who he was—and he had to admit, he would have deserved it—they might have ignored or been suspicious of them had he just left them nearby.

In the end he decided he must do it himself. Perhaps a Plundarrian burial was uncustomary for her kind, but it was better than none. So in the loneliness of the moonlight, the canine dug a hole large enough to hold her remains and items, and he carefully placed them in. As he replaced the dirt over her grave and patted it down, he said a silent prayer and smiled.

* * *

Many miles away, Tygra stared out the window of his bedroom in Cat's Lair. It had only been a little more than a day's time since he had left that very room to be with Celeste, and so much had happened to him during it. He wondered how was it that she had fooled him so completely. Why had he been such an easy target for her? What character flaw was inherent within him that had allowed Celeste to manipulate him with such ease? The tiger did not understand how it could have happened, how it could have gone so far and so quickly without him being aware of it, and it frightened him.

He was shaken out of his reverie when he heard a light knock at his door. "Tygra! It's Cheetara. Are you in there?"

"Come in," he answered quietly.

Cheetara opened the door and entered, closing it softly behind her. She approached him softly, her face filled with concern. "You barely said two words at dinner, and ever since you've been back. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I just feel so guilty for putting you all in such danger over something so selfish," he said with a sad shake of his striped mane. "You all came and saved me, but Code of Thundera or not, I don't feel like I deserved to be rescued. It was my own fault for being caught in her lies, and it would've been just what I deserved after how I acted. Especially after I betrayed Lion-O. No amount of her will should have been able to push me to do that."

"She was a powerful demoness, Tygra, with dark magic. It would've been hard for any of us to resist her influence if she'd had the chance to weave her magic on us the way she had on you. Everyone makes mistakes, Tygra, and Lion-O bears you no ill will for what happened."

"He may not, but I do. Honestly, Cheetara, you have to admit that this one even tops out the Keystone incident for foolish decisions."

"You're too hard on yourself, Tygra. Do you think the rest of us have never weakened in a way that we're ashamed of? How about the time Vultureman used his telepathy beam on me, and I let my pride prevent me from telling Lion-O that I had a feeling Panthro was in trouble? Remember, Panthro was kidnapped by the Lunatacs as a direct result of it, just because I was afraid to look like I was crazy. That was pretty stupid and selfish of me, but you all forgave me for that. How is your moment of weakness any different?"

Tygra smiled in spite of himself, but shifted the subject nevertheless. "Speaking of the Lunatacs, I wonder what ever happened to Chilla? Damien enchanted her much the same way Celeste enchanted me. I wonder if she's feeling the same way I am right now."

"I think it's a wonder a cold-hearted woman like her could even have feelings," Cheetara said with a light laugh. "You certainly couldn't tell it from any of the things she's done in the past."

"She was certainly feeling something when she lit into Damien once she figured out what was going on," Tygra mused. "And I'd have to guess she must've been feeling something pretty strong to make her angry enough to kill Alluro."

"Well, I can identify with wanting to kill him with that arrogant attitude of his," Cheetara chuckled. "But really, I'd be surprised if she didn't bounce back meaner than ever." She shook her head. "More's the pity, if the experience would've taught her something about feeling the kind of pain she and the rest of the Lunatacs inflict on others." Cheetara met Tygra's eyes. "But right now I'm more concerned about you. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Tygra. You really don't deserve _that_. After all," she smiled, "I wouldn't be here talking to you if you hadn't found Celeste in the first place." She drew him into a warm hug.

Tygra's smile broadened as he hugged his closest friend back. "Thank you, Cheetara. You always know how to cheer me up."

* * *

In the dark and dirty engine room of Skytomb, Chilla stood in front of the industrial-sized furnace that fueled its power. She was once again dressed in her usual style of dress of a cape, boots, and tight white dress—an outfit of which she had several duplicates in very similar variations. Despite her inherent dislike and discomfort in the heat the furnace put out, she opened the hatch and tossed the red toga and sandals she wore back in Damien's home into the blaze. "Good riddance to bad memories," she said to herself as she watched the flames consume them into ash.

A sudden voice from behind her indicated that she was no longer alone. "Re-enacting Damien's dramatic exit, are you?" Alluro questioned with an odd smirk from the balcony above.

She turned, glanced up at the psi, and then returned her attention to the fire. "Just getting rid of some junk that holds absolutely no value to me," she answered flatly.

Alluro took a few steps toward her, down the metal stairwell. "Luna is concerned about you," he said abruptly.

Chilla looked over at him again, that time with a mildly inquisitive expression on her face.

"She thinks you're acting strangely," he continued. "And she's wondering if you might vanish again… or do something equally ill-thought out."

"She told you that?" Chilla raised a dubious eyebrow. It was not like Luna at all to talk about her personal feelings or concerns. In fact, Chilla had once remembered their illustrious leader saying that she would rather spend a week locked in a room with Slythe and Mumm-Ra together than discuss anything of a personal nature with some of her crew. "What exactly did Luna say?" she pressed, suddenly struck with the feeling that Alluro was there for something else that had little to do with Luna at all.

"Like I said, she expressed some concern that you might not be completely over your feelings for Damien," the psi answered, catching her gaze and watching it intently. After a significant pause, he added, "Are you?"

Chilla hardened her expression, unwilling to indulge him any further. "I just burned everything that could possibly remind me of the creep, so what do you think?" she hissed in response, the frost on her breath evaporating almost instantly in the furnace's heat. "I couldn't care less about him. He was just some worthless man who tricked me long enough to put me under a spell so he could use me. I wouldn't have put up with him at all if he hadn't affected my mind with his magic." She slammed the heavy iron door of the furnace shut. "Actually, I'm surprised he even got that far. It's not like his type has any appeal to me. None at all. So why would I care? He's dead, and it's no great loss."

She brushed the grimy dust from the furnace off her gloves to see if Alluro was going to say anything, but he remained silent, so she continued. "Falling in love just makes you weak anyway, and believe me, I won't make _that_ mistake again. It's something only the insecure need anyway. So you can tell Luna that it'll be a hot day on the ice moon before I give any man the chance to mess with me that way ever again."

Alluro straightened haughtily. "Right. I'll let her know." His tone was stiff, but hung in the air like the smoke from the Thundrillium burning along with her toga and sandals. She did not have anything to say to it, so she decided to let it be, and it seemed that Alluro was of the same mind, for the engine room door slammed shut loudly as he made his exit, leaving her alone with her thoughts once more. Chilla resumed watching the fire behind the iron grate of the furnace door.

"Never again," she murmured. "Never again."

**The End**


End file.
